Quote - > Quote - Ok, I asked over at the official forum at RDNA, they told me weight mapping in P9 and PP2012 is only for rigging.

This is an interesting statement. I thought weight mapping WAS only for rigging. What else is it used for?

Weight mapping

http://softimage.wiki.softimage.com/xsidocs/weightmaps_WeightMaps.htm

BB, thank you for that link.

I've bookmarked it so I can read it more when there is a little free time. :) 

This demo vid from DAZ actually demonstrates the whole concept pretty well, although some of it is pretty specific to D|S.  Keep in mind, weight mapping isn't any kind of big innovation for either DAZ or SM, the technology has been around many many years now.

Weight mapping actually makes more sense to my poor addled brain than sphere and capsule zones do...lol.

Laurie

@pjz99, Well, Poser's ability to combine spherical falloff zones with vertext weight might not be entirely new, but not every application that supports weight mapping supports this, Maya introduced the feature only recently.

But I think if you want to see true innovation in the subject, watch any "blendrig" video, THAT is impressive.

A thread at RDNA states that Poser's weight mapping will not be set up (at least in the upcoming releases) to be used with dynamic cloth, to define different areas of intensity or resistance for the dynamic simulation.  Just to close the question which was discussed above.

Quote - Weight mapping actually makes more sense to my poor addled brain than sphere and capsule zones do...lol.

I think the concept of weight mapping is more intuitively approachable than that of the sphere or capsule zones.  It can be more tedious to set up, requiring more attention to details, but setting up the old deformation zones can be awfully fiddly too if you're trying to get good results.

Folks, plural words don't get " 's".  Where are people learning that?

I have difficulty with my spelling and grammer and English is my first Language (with profanity a close second).

Anway, back on track.  Assuming I have $150 to spend in the next few weeks I can either buy almost all the packages for Genesis available so far, or, I can upgrade from Pro 2010 to Pro 2012.

Decisions, decisions.........can't wait to the 17th August and then 20th September.

@flibbits, Are you refering to "Poser's"? I'm not a native english speaker so I make all kinds of mistakes, not sure if that's the one you are pointing to.

For all of the people who post here, whether or not your native language is English:

I have adegree in English, so, I license all the people who post in the Poser Forums to use non-standard, and/or incorrect grammer and spelling in perpetuity. Just try to make your posts as understandable as possible.

The problem is solved.

lmk

What about "typos"? I do that a lot...lol

Quote - For all of the people who post here, whether or not your native language is English:

I have adegree in English, so, I license all the people who post in the Poser Forums to use non-standard, and/or incorrect grammer and spelling in perpetuity. Just try to make your posts as understandable as possible.

The problem is solved.

lmk

Wooho! licence to mess up! Thanks :)

"What about "typos"? I do that a lot...lol"

Good point, but typographic errors are just accidents or simple mistakes. Civilized, intelligent people should overlook those as a matter of good forum etiquette. But, if it is needed, I give blanket forgiveness for “typos” also.

lmk

I am going to use Genesis as my figure of choice from now on, so I will be buying Studio Advanced.

There is a lot more to Genesis than a new mesh and weight mapping, and I really don't think using it in Poser will give more than 10% of what can be achieved with it in Studio.

Cheers

Ian

Quote - There is a lot more to Genesis than a new mesh and weight mapping..

Not to start a debate, or be a wise guy, but those are what I see when I see Genesis-what am I missing?

I'm no expert on Genesis, but from trying it out I see:-

Ability to morph into any human shape. tall short , fat thin, young old, male female, and some non human shapes if you like monsters. No more all your characters being the same height, or problems with joints messing up when limbs are scaled.

Morph targets for Genesis will work for all the above shapes, so no need to replicate the same morph for a lot of different base meshes.

An item of clothing designed for Genesis will fit on all of the above shapes, so for instance a pair of shorts is a pair of shorts for any shape above.

Gen 4 clothing can be fitted with Autofit to any of the above shapes, although I would say at this time the results of Autofit are not as good as Wardrobe Wizard or Crossdresser, particularly all morphs are lost and shoes don't convert well. This is supposed to be being improved, but who knows how well? Autofit is not limited to adapting clothes from one existing figure to another existing figure, though, and I think that's a big plus.

Genesis is a low resolution figure which is subdivided in Studio, so it looks a lot smoother than the basic mesh.

All in all I see genesis as being adaptable for any human character I might choose to have in a scene, and no issues with trying to make clothes fit on it ( if they are designed for genesis )  

Cheers

Ian

I tried a few things with Genesis but still don't quite have the hang of DS.

Can't get clothes to stay on or fit right, but that is more me than DS I guess...lol.

As for V4, I make textures for all the figures I can find that won't cost me a fortune to aquire so I'll still be using her since her base was free for a bit.

My favorite female model is Antonia and Apollo for my favorite male model.

Quote - I am going to use Genesis as my figure of choice from now on, so I will be buying Studio Advanced.

There is a lot more to Genesis than a new mesh and weight mapping, and I really don't think using it in Poser will give more than 10% of what can be achieved with it in Studio.

Cheers

Ian

 

Now that's what I am looking for, someone who can show me what is possible with Geneisis.  I look forward to seeing examples.  Easier this, easier that does not do it for me and some of the hype just suggests it comes closer to having an 'art button'. When I see the stunning renders I will give it serious consideration and if it is worth the innvestment over V4 fine. 

I hope I am wrong but I think I am for a long wait. 

My other concern would be that I was disappointed in the earlier Daz Advanced over Poser Pro 2010 and stopped using it but if the Genesis can deliver on all the hype I'm prepared to give it another go.

Genesis also has automatic UV switching, useful for extreme morphs that could otherwise cause texture distortion.

Still means I have to learn a new program. Nope. I've still got to learn Blender, making conformers and rigging. I ain't got time.

Laurie

and I've got Blender, vue, Messiah, PHP, MySQL to learn... not enough time for another program..

ROFL Laurie, I love your new avatar!!! wish I had thought of that.

I actually have no problem learning DS, I already use it to some extent, but it's not just about learning to use it, it's also about the content, I have many many Poser characters and scenes using magnets, procedural materials and of course, the VSS Shader (no scene of mine renders without it), and none of those are compatible with DS.

"My favorite female model is Antonia and Apollo for my favorite male model."

I agree Antonia is a great model and bends really nicely. I tried to make some clothing for her whilst she was under development, but I found the features which gave her great bend capability also made it very difficult to make close fitting clothing without poke through. I think it was cascading joint controlled morphs. That was quite likely my lack of skill in making clothing though. Apollo I never really got enthusiastic about, but that might be due to all the drama that went on here with his creator.

I think both of these figures set a high standard of the quality that I expect to see in modern figures, whether in Poser or Studio.

Cheers

Ian

Quote - ...Nope. I've still got to learn Blender, making conformers and rigging....

Mmmmmmm...Cookies!!

@Ian,

Most of the advantages you cite are a consequence of weight mapping-the Gen. 4 figures share a common mesh, and the morphs are interchangeble between the figures.  Weight mapping accounts for scaling, which avoids the pitfalls of fallofff zones seen in the Gen. 4 figures which necessitates having seperate figures, and the weight mapping can easily be transfered to clothing.

Sub-D in Studio is an advantage...

Hmmmm, so you are saying that a Gen 4 figure, such as Victoria4 could be morphed to look like Mike4 or Kid4 or other gen 4 character, and the weight mapping will take care of moving the joint centres, and also take clothing along with it, including scaling?

I'm kind of curious about who will create these weight mapping setups for legacy figures. If everybody does their own then there will be hundreds of different rigs for the same figure. How will clothing creators be able to make clothing to fit them all, or is that automatic? I expect a lot of uses won't have the skills to set them up for themselves. I'm not knocking the idea of weight mapping. I thinks it's a great tool, I'm just thinking there is a big gap between having the capability, and making it work for the majority of users.

Not trying to be clever here or knock SM. Truth is for many years I stuck to Poser, since version 2, and I'm happy they have implemented some real technical advances. I'm kind of wary though about sticking to legacy content.

 I love cookies too ;-)

Quote - I'm kind of curious about who will create these weight mapping setups for legacy figures. If everybody does their own then there will be hundreds of different rigs for the same figure. How will clothing creators be able to make clothing to fit them all, or is that automatic? I expect a lot of uses won't have the skills to set them up for themselves. I'm not knocking the idea of weight mapping. I thinks it's a great tool, I'm just thinking there is a big gap between having the capability, and making it work for the majority of users.

Old rigging methods will not stop working. All your previous content will work the same as they always have. In fact, P9 and PP2012 even allows you to mix old rigging and new rigging, to use weight maps only in problematic areas if you need. And I see many people around proposing to distribute just the new rigging for old figures... we could have one as our default (say, weight mapped V4, let's use John Doe's version) and make clothes for that.

Quote - This demo vid from DAZ actually demonstrates the whole concept pretty well, although some of it is pretty specific to D|S.  Keep in mind, weight mapping isn't any kind of big innovation for either DAZ or SM, the technology has been around many many years now.

I, uh, forgot to give the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIIM1oAan7o&list=PLE026B44096BBD507&index=5

Well, well, wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll !
8 pages into this discussion, and I still have to SEEEEEEEEE, well,  something, anything.

My old Mark2 eyeballs only believe what they SEEEEEEEEE.

And thus far, after 8 pages. . . . of bla- bla- bla- bla-

And YES, the demo; Oh, the demo !

Any "real" user ? No takers?

Do not even try to start to convince me with words only. :-)

I'm disapointed. I started to read this thread, because I thought that it is about V5 genital area.

Quote - What about "typos"? I do that a lot...lol

I'm fluent in topy's

Quote - Folks, plural words don't get " 's".  Where are people learning that?

the use of 's in the few times I saw it used with Poser was correct...it was used as possessive

Quote - Folks, plural words don't get " 's".  Where are people learning that?

And who gives a rat's butt?

Laurie

Quote -
Sub-D in Studio is an advantage...

Damned right it is (even in DS 3, which I still use more than anything else). Once you turn on Sub-D, a whole lot of older and low-poly figures with so-so or even crap bending (MilGirl PT, Kururu, TY2, etc) suddenly bend a whole lot better, and creases aren't as much of a PITA, or something you have to go back and postwork out. In my own testing, it even manages to make the P4 critters look usable.

It kind of brought a lot of new life into a lot of figures I thought I had given up for crap a long time ago... 

...this leads me to ask: Does Poser have SubD in 8 (or upcoming 9)? It's become a very nice thing to have around.

Quote - > Quote - Folks, plural words don't get " 's".  Where are people learning that?

And who gives a rat's butt?

Laurie

this is proper use of 's .... and I don;t care either...just sayin

You mean you don**'**t care with an apostrophe not a semicolon.  If you did that as joke I didn't get it, I see people doing it all the time.

Quote - You mean you don**'**t care with an apostrophe not a semicolon.  If you did that as joke I didn't get it, I see people doing it all the time.

The apostrophe is right next to the semicolon on the keyboard. THAT may be the reason?

Well I won't leave Poser but I will try Genesis.

Why leave any of them?

Just work with each as toime permits. :)

Quote - Well I won't leave Poser but I will try Genesis.

Why leave any of them?

Just work with each as toime permits. :)

This :) PS: ZOMG A typo!! "toime"?

Quote -   "toime"?

I just figured she was from New Jersey... :lol:

Quote - ... When I see the stunning renders...

You'll see lots of stunning renders when Genesis is brought to Poser. DAZ|Studio's render setup is still extremely clunky compared to Poser's, so only a select few people are able to get the most from it. I'm not one of those people, so I will have to wait until Genesis is usable in Poser to render it properly.

However, DAZ|Studio 4 Advanced/Pro are right around the corner, much like Poser 9/Pro 2012, so the stunning renders should be along in a few weeks/months :)

In the meanwhile, as has been stated before, you should at least get yourself a copy of DAZ|Studio 4 Standard while it is still free. You can then install it whenever you feel like it and play around with Genesis.

As an aside, my upgrade path to D|S4A/P is so low that I will be able to upgrade to it and Poser Pro 2012, but if I had to choose, I'd stick with Poser Pro 2012.

"... When I see the stunning renders..."
You'll see lots of stunning renders when Genesis is brought to Poser"

Both Poser and DAZ Studio can produce identical quality renders. It's entirely up to the user to use the tools that both programs offer. Even mediocre renders can be taken to Photoshop for postwork and improved dramatically.

Poser and DAZ Studio differ in their interfaces, some minor differences in the way things are done, and very minor differences in their features. Quality of the renders is not one of them.

SnowS

SnowS,

This is not an attack on DS because each program has it's strengths and everyone should use what they like.

But unless something has drastically changed in DS4, I can build two fairly identical simple light sets for each and get much greater light and shadow "depth" in Poser.  That's with no alternate render engines, no IDL, no shaders or shader tricks or anything else like that and only using the capability that both programs share.

It just feels like I have to fight with DS to get some shadow and light depth.

@SnowSultan:
No offence, but if you read my first paragraph, you'll see that I said the same.

D|S's main problem is, as it always has been, the UI making things harder than they should be when it comes to shader setup. This makes it more difficult to achieve good renders, and coupled with the lack of documentation, means that even though DAZ|Studio is very capable of achieving comparable quality renders with Poser, it simply doesn't happen as often due to the additional difficulty of setting things up vs how easy it is in Poser.

I was very excited when I saw those early previews of DAZ|Studio 3 Advanced renders utilizing IDL. I was then disappointed when I tried to get similar results and failed. I know it isn't just me, as once Poser 8 was released, I was able to get the kind of renders I wanted out of Poser with a minimal learning curve.

OTOH, if I could steal Hellboy Soto's brain, I'm sure I'd love DAZ|Studio as much as you do :)

Quote - D|S's main problem is, as it always has been, the UI making things harder than they should be when it comes to shader setup.

I can agree with this, but only insofar as it is tough to make a UI that is both flexible and useful to the newbie at the same time. I can only speak to the documentation that I'd written myself, but that was back in 2005 or so, long before shaders arrived in the form we know 'em as now. 

Have you (or anyone, really) considered hitting the Wiki for 'em and adding what you know of them? 

I mean, consider - much of Poser's shader setup is crazy too, but in this here forum, there's a gent who has really gone out of his way to make it intelligible and useful, in spite of the documentation.

Quote - OTOH, if I could steal Hellboy Soto's brain, I'm sure I'd love DAZ|Studio as much as you do :)

Stealing his brain is easy - just pick up a saw and head for R'otica. :)

Quote - OTOH, if I could steal Hellboy Soto's brain, I'm sure I'd love DAZ|Studio as much as you do :)

Pretty sure he actually renders in LuxRender but yeah you should just ask him.

The question isn't really how easy it is to make good renders, they both can create nearly identical quality renders in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing. Yes, Poser has much better documentation at the moment, which would explain why there might appear to be a larger number of higher-quality Poser renders in the galleries here.

These sorts of "should I switch programs?" threads, both here and at DAZ really just cause more trouble than good because as Netherworks says, people need to use whatever program works for them. People at least need to wait until the new Poser and the finished DAZ Studio 4 Advanced are released to even know which program is best for them.   :)

Thanks,

SnowS

Quote - OTOH, if I could steal Hellboy Soto's brain, I'm sure I'd love DAZ|Studio as much as you do :)

Not one of those images was rendered in Daz Studio - all of the images say he used Reality. Which means rendered in LuxRender.

Quote - > Quote - OTOH, if I could steal Hellboy Soto's brain, I'm sure I'd love DAZ|Studio as much as you do :)

Not one of those images was rendered in Daz Studio - all of the images say he used Reality. Which means rendered in LuxRender.