Ah, you did call the dial Gravity. Forget I mentioned that. :-)

500 PNU is about 1300 m, so Antonia can roam around without (oh fear!) her earrings getting messed up! Thanks Les!

Note that in addition to gravity, there is also accelerations of the support point. If the head starts to move forward, the rings are likely to swing back.

I assume that the rings have their own 'point at' dial (Poser provides it automatically for 'pointed at' objects), so the degree of 'gravity' can be influenced for each ring separately.

As for a ponytail, that will be flexible and deform. The technique is better suited for stiff elements like a sword worn at the hip or a knapsack carried on a stick. 'Point at' can also be used to simulate hydraulic cylinders in articulated arms like they are found on excavators. The house and the piston are each parented one of two linked limbs and made to 'point at' each-other. 

'Point at' is one of those powerful tools in Poser that is not very well known and not often used.

Again: thanks, Les!

(p.s. added in edit: I saw EnglisBob's post after posting. Also for me, forget what I noted on the issue.)

Ah, cool solution! When I began reading and saw "Point At," I thought "ah, point at the Ground!" but I guess that would be too large to do any good.

Always new tricks to learn. :)

Quote -
Well "pseudo-gravity" is really just a fancy word that I'm using for for something that is really quite old hat, the Poser 'Point At' function, when used in a certain way. A ghost actor (no geometry) was parented to the BODY and placed a long way under the ground (-900000.0 PNU). The Poser 'Point At' function (Object menu) was then used to point the earrings at the ghost actor. So long as the y axis of the BODY remains vertical (no x or z rotation of the BODY actor), and the hip does not get moved more than about 500 PNU from the BODY, then it seems to works fairly well. The fly in the ointment here is that the rings will not respect solid objects and if Antonia is tilted too far to the side, the rings will fall through her neck. Because of that a dial was added to the BODY to turn "gravity" on or off.

Note that 'Point At' works along a line drawn from the origin of the pointing item, through its endpoint, and terminating at the origin of the item pointed at. So its important to have the origins and endPoints positioned appropriately.

As to how broad an application this has, I'm not really sure. It's good for things that hang down and have a fair bit of room to move, also good for things that point up, like balancing a ball on a finger. Probably not very good for something like a ponytail, because it would fall straight through the figures back when it leaned forwards, and 'Point At' does not respect forced limits.

Maybe Poser's collission dectection is able to handle this...

It's not that the GROUND  is too large, but rather that it is too close. If you pointed at the ground the earrings would point at its origin (which is in the center), so if you moved Antonia a couple of feet to the side, the earrings would be at an angle. In fact, the angle made by a line drawn between Antonia's head and the origin of the GROUND. Using an object at a distance of yTran -900000.0 PNU, when the hip is moved the the change of angle is so slight it will not be noticed in normal circumstances.

Quote - Maybe Poser's collission dectection is able to handle this...

It probably could. Though I wonder it this would be using a sledge hammer to crack a walnut - unless you were already using collision detection for a cloth simulation.

bagoas, quote: I assume that the rings have their own 'point at' dial (Poser provides it automatically for 'pointed at' objects), so the degree of 'gravity' can be influenced for each ring separately.

Perhaps I could have done things better. I used one dial to turn gravity on/off for both sides. I should probably have separated these functions into left and right. As things stand, the actors that contain the individual Point At  dials are hidden, so it is not so easy to access the individual dials. Perhaps I should do an update, and make separate gravity dials for right and left.

I have posted an updated version of the RingsLL, with separate dials, to the free site.

As a beginning rigger, I'm having a rigging problem unrelated to Antonia.  I'm trying to get a mechanical arm on a craft to rotate without distorting the hull of the vessel it's on.  Anyone want to advise me in private how I might deal with this?

Les: thanks!

Thalek: turn off the bending on that part. Enquire within for more details. :) 

Les, there's still a problem with the earrings: the CR2 is referencing Rings.obj and blank.obj, which aren't in the download. I told it to use RingsLB.obj instead for the first one, and I assume the second is a null geometry which could be almost anything.

I used a file with the single line

g null

as a stand-in for blank.obj.

Edit: I see there's a reference to pendants 5 and 6, but the geometry dial doesn't go that far. I'll hold off further comments until I've done more testing.

Les, I have similar problems to EnglishBob with the earrings, although I haven't tested as thoroughly as he has.

EnglishBob, your suggestion (with expanded explanation in email) did the trick.  Sent it back to the boss for further testing to see if it's ready to upload.  Maybe I'll have it menace Antonia in a render so I can stay on-topic.  [grin]

Thanks Bob. Oh dear, I made a real mess of this. I just knew I was going to have problems packaging this. Bad housekeeping, I've got diffrent versions of files with diffrent names scattered all over the place.

I've added the "blank.obj" (essentially just an empty file), and changed the geometry refference in the cr2 to "Rings_LB.obj", and uploaded the new zip. Hopefully it is OK now.

I haven't downloaded the new version, but I've made exactly the same mods to my existing one including a couple of scenes I'd used it in and all seems fine now. Thanks again, Les, and don't fret about it. The person who makes no mistakes, makes nothing. ;)

Quote - I learn more in ten minutes with BagginsBill than I learn with all of the Poser manuals.

That goes twice for me!

Just in case someone missed it, there's a very active thread on RDNA about weight-mapping V4, with HUGE emphasis on Antonia being the next go-to girl. Wasn't sure if people were aware of it... we're all sort-of singing off the same page, but there are some quite interesting discussions going on there that I really think you all should be part of. Indeed, we are talking about strongly marketing Antonia and lots of exciting things. Didn't want anyone here left out: you're all key players in this!!

Antonia RULES!! :woot:

Quote - Another action pic for Antonia, with help from Nyrath, Bill Redfern, and EnglishBob, just to name a few.

Really convincing action, except there's no shadows! You need to get away from using depth-mapped shadows and vendor lights, petal. 1 light, raytraced, and you won't believe the drama!!!

Ulla! :D

Quote - > Quote - Another action pic for Antonia, with help from Nyrath, Bill Redfern, and EnglishBob, just to name a few.

Really convincing action, except there's no shadows! You need to get away from using depth-mapped shadows and vendor lights, petal. 1 light, raytraced, and you won't believe the drama!!!

I'm using the one light, sky dome setup BagginsBill suggested.  I realized that I had failed to turn on ray-traced shadows and set the shadows to 0.5 as he suggested after you brought it up.  However, adding in those two settings didn't change anything.  Nor did moving the light to a different angle (using the shadow camera as an aid).

I'm thoroughly puzzled now.

heheh - happens to me all the time, don't feel bad! And my puny little i3 takes much more time chewing through stuff. On the PP201x wishlist is the ability for Firefly to access CUDA and GPU rendering!

I'm getting ready to try and finish my latest APG set.

There are several make-up options as face maps in jpg format.  These, however,  will not work correctly in PoserPro 2012 if you use SSS.

So here is a question, will there be enough SSS users to make it worth the effort to just make the make-up options as masks?

Or would it be better all the way around to just do them as masks?

Use BB's method of plugging a Color Math to Difference to extract a mask... I don't remember the specifics, but it involved plugging your no-makeup texture in one plug of the Color Math and the makeup one in the other.

This way, you won't need extra texture maps in your package.

Will that work on mask that are for specific colors?

Each make-up is made specifically for a color scheme and some in shaded colors.

Thanks, Robynsveil.  Yeah, some form of GPU acceleration would be nice.

BluEcho, I have an opinion for you:  there aren't many SSS users right now, myself included (need to save my pennies for 2012).  But there will be, eventually.

Quote - I'm getting ready to try and finish my latest APG set.

There are several make-up options as face maps in jpg format.  These, however,  will not work correctly in PoserPro 2012 if you use SSS.

So here is a question, will there be enough SSS users to make it worth the effort to just make the make-up options as masks?

Or would it be better all the way around to just do them as masks?

 

 

Supply scatter masks - the scattering effect can be modulated with those. Then you only need ordinary color maps with or without makeup as you like.

BB, I'm not sure what a scatter mask is.

Still trying to get the hang of this stuff...lol.

A mask is an image where you are defining the strength of an effect. In this case, you're concerned with the fact that you are making a texture set, with colors, and these colors include the color of makeup. It doesn't really matter what color that is, the important thing is that it blocks the light from reaching the skin. It diffusely reflects off the makeup first. Examples would be eyeliner, which completely blocks scatter, lipstick can be total block or partial, eye shadow is usually partially blocking light from reaching the skin.

If any of these are dark, they will block scatter more just by being darker colors.

However, if they are light, but supposed to be opaque, you would want to indicate that on those areas there is less scatter.

A mask should be made where you draw white where the skin scatters most, gray where it scatters less, and black where it does not scatter at all.

Then you'd use this mask to blend two nodes - an ordinary Diffuse node, and a Scatter node. Both would receive the color from the color map, but which one gets to actually emit its output to the render will be controlled by the Blender node. The Blender Blending value would come from the scatter map.

When the mask is 0 (black), the Diffuse node would take the whole job.

When the mask is 1 (white), the Scatter node would take the whole job.

Any values in between (grays) would indicate a mixture or blending of the two nodes.

It is important that the effect of this mask is always the same, so when using it, set its gamma to 1. It is not a picture. It is data.

BB, thank you for explaining this. I've read the manuals and stuff on forums and it wasn't as clear as this.

That's one reason why I've avoided using masks. Maybe now I can get them right. :)

Had to do some more refining work on the rigging for the war machine, but I think we're just about done.

So, to put this back on Antonia, does anyone think the image I posted here is ready for the gallery, or does it need more work?

Quote - So, to put this back on Antonia, does anyone think the image I posted here is ready for the gallery, or does it need more work?

It's up to you, but at the very least I would think you would want to do something with the sky.

I was a bit disappointed with the sky, too.  I expected clouds and stuff, and it looks rather . . . bland.  I'll have to look at the settings and see what I did wrong.  (When something from BagginsBill doesn't work, it's not BB's fault; it's almost always pilot error on the part of the user.)

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere/environment-sphere-instructions

Instructions ... grin

You're supposed to put an image of clouds on the sphere if you want clouds on the sphere.

Where to get them?

Also have instructions for that:

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere/environment-sphere-links

And if the cloud pictures you find are not dramatic enough or don't give the right mood you want:

http://sites.google.com/site/bagginsbill/free-stuff/environment-sphere/environment-sphere-effects

Much better. :)

Attached Link: Antonia Free SIte

rjjack, that is beautiful!

Thank you. :)

That's pretty, thank you!

Also, HOW DO I GET THAT HAIR? Want...

Attached Link: Ali HR 070

ali hr-070

Thanks!

Quote - Another Dress for Antonia, enjoy

That looks great. Thanks rjjack! 

Quote - ... does anyone think the image I posted here is ready for the gallery, or does it need more work?

To my eyes, the thing that stands out as needing attention is the explosion behind Antonia. That should be a major source of light, and although I've never seen a real Martian war machine, I imagine the rays coming from its weapon would be bright too.

Try using the ambient channel to make these props light up. To simulate the light they cast on the scene, I'd try placing a point light at the position of the explosion, appropriately coloured. Turn off shadow casting for the prop, of course. You'll probably have to refine things once you see a render, and I daresay BB may have some more detailed ideas on the subject. 

Edit: this thread in the critique forum may (or may not) have some ideas. 

Quote - Another Dress for Antonia, enjoy

Oh, NICE! Thanks!!

Thank you, everyone.  When I get back from my usual weekend sabbatical, I'll have to check out links, experiment with suggestions, et cetera.  Considering that the original heat ray effect was created by vaporizing lengths of welding wire, it probably should be a light source.

And I have to check out that dress and that hair, as well.

Have fun with the dress, look like Ali will get some sales this week-end, some people asked the same thing on ShareCG :biggrin:

FYI the dress is made for Aiko3, Angela2, Antonia, Miki1, Miki2, Miki3, Olivia G2, Sydney G2 and Terai Yuki 2, i am rendering a tonne of thumbnails now and will package all these girls for monday i hope.

A question for anyone using DS (I still haven't quite got the ins and outs on it)...does DS use masks like Poser? I'd like to go with masks for the make-up options, no make-up on the actual textures, but not sure if DS uses them...sigh.

And I would like for the set to be DS compatible.

AFAIk you can use mask on DS, you may want to PM fisty who make a lot of DS MAT for hairs

Well now I have a different problem...sigh.

For some reason I can't get the eyebrows to work with a trans map, even without vss or sss! 

Guess I'm getting forgetful. :)                                  

Blue, for those "effectful" shaders you'll want to use your trans map as a mask for the effects as well, using a Blender node. Plug Blender to the channel where your nodes are (usually Alt Diffuse), your trans map to Blender node's Blending plug, put a black color to the plug that represents the black part of your map, and plug what was plugged to Diffuse in the other part of the Blender. Don't forget to also set the transparency to your map.