Quote - @Cage: is that EVEN POSSIBLE? OMG WANT!

It should be possible.  Right now, one could theoretically hack a line .obj out of a dynamic hair prop, edit that in Blender or Modo, some 3D program which can handle line geometries, then hack the edited line .obj back into the hair file.  Certain elements would need to remain unaltered, at least including keeping the base vertices for the hairs unmoved.

A tool which could do that natively would be just fantastic.  I would try it, but I lack the math and C++ skillz.  :lol:

@Cage: That's an intriguing idea. I think the most challenging - and probably time-consuming - bit for me would be to write a good 3d editor and a reasonable GUI.

@odf,

Thanks for filling us in, and please keep us updated from time to time. I wish you much success with your freelance pursuits in Melbourne. I seem to remember that the Italian Waiters Club was an interesting place to go, but that was back in the 1970's.

Quote - So if any of you good folk have ideas on what you think might sell well - models, morphs, figure accessories, mesh-fiddling tools or general Poser-related hair-pulling-out-avoidance software - please don't be shy and let me know. :-)

I have no idea what would or would not sell, but here are a couple of things that I would like to have. They may, if nothing else, spawn some further ideas in your mind.

I would like a Walk Designer that really works. One that I could use to make any figure walk or run. And I would like to have a high degree of control over it, and I don't care if that means more work in setting up the walk cycle, as long as the results are good. It would be a big bonus if the walk could go up hill, or climb stairs. It would also be a bonus if props could be made to follow a path, so that cars plains and boats could be easily animated. I don't know if the WD has improved since P6, but the P6 one is not fit for purpose. OK, that should take up at least 5 years of your spare time!

I'd like a Poser file editor that had an expanding tree in the left window (eg like CR2 Editor, or CR2Builder), and a plain text editor in the right window, that would automatically scroll to the line selected in the left window.

Any Poser-related hair-pulling-out-avoidance software, would also be very welcome from my point of view. Please consider me a candidate tester if you need one.

Antonia is a masterpiece, thanks.

Your narative is interesting. It would make a good TV drama.

When I read your challenge to think of possible projects, I thought of a stand alone dynamic hair application, like Cage did. I suppose my averous is somewhat more bloated than Cages, I think it would be great if a hair project could be designed and saved, and then applied right on an object (like the head of a figure) instead of on a seperate scull cap, prop, object, whatever. I can imagine growing eyebrows, beards, body hair, even eyelashes right on a figure, and then opening it to use in Poser.

P9/PP2010 can render dynamic hair faster now, so there is more of a need for improved dynamic hair.

G'Day

lmk

Quote - When I say topology, I mean what you get when you look at a basic OBJ file without texture coordinates or normals and ignore everything but the 'f' lines. Basically, that tells you that have a certain number of vertices, numbered from 1 to, say, 14512, and that certain cyclic sequences of these form polygons. If you change all the numbers consistently - say, you add 1000 to each - you still get the same topology...

Hmm... I've been working with .obj files for 10+ years now and my most popular plugin is actually .obj file IO filter (Riptide Pro, for Cinema 4D), so I'm pretty familiar with the subject :). So just to clarify some terminology...

v <-- vertex line/record

vt <-- texture-vertex (uv-coordinate) records

n <-- normal records

f <-- 'facet' (polygon) records

...so looking at the facet lines in more detail, each one describes one polygon (indices into the v/vt/n tables).  If we ignore texture-vertex indices and normal indices for the sake of discussion, a sample might be...

f 1 2 3 4
f 4 3 5 6
f 6 5 7 8

...in my example above, I'm describing 3 rectangular (quad) polyons, lets say stacked on top of each other, using a clockwise vertex-ordering (the 1, 2, 3, etc. numbers are "indices of the vertices" that make up each polygon).

If the 'order' of the vertex-table changes, then those indices would also change. Note that the order does not necessarily (doesn't have to) change in a polygon-homogenous way.  In other words, it's possible that vertex '1' is now vertex '6', vertex '6' is now vertex '3' and vertex '3' is now vertex '1', so the new facet records would look like so...

f 6 2 1 4
f 4 1 5 3
f 3 5 7 8

...it's also possible that the 'starting point' of the polygon ordering has changed.  for example (using just the first polygon from the first group, above)...

f 1 2 3 4
f 2 3 4 1
f 3 4 1 2
f 4 1 2 3

...each describe the exact same polygon, but the starting index shifts around.

Finally, the order that the polygons themselves are listed may also change (using the first group as an example)...

f 1 2 3 4
f 6 5 7 8
f 4 3 5 6

...or using the second example, where the vertex indices have changed as well...

f 3 5 7 8
f 4 1 5 3
f 6 2 1 4

...I briefly looked at your Scala code, but a) I'm not familiar with the language and b) not terribly familiar with hash-tables...

Does your method account for all of the above?  Without resorting to comparing vertex-positions (assume they are morphed out of position)?

Quote - Does your method account for all of the above?  Without resorting to comparing vertex-positions (assume they are morphed out of position)?

Yep!

Quote - A program to design and edit Poser dynamic hair files.  It would need to be able to handle line geometries, perhaps work with splines.  If the formatting is handled properly and the base vertices for the hairs aren't moved, an external tool should be able to handle Poser hair.  Making dynamic hair accessible would be a big boost for Poser.  :laugh:  

My Riptide Pro plugin (for Cinema 4D) will convert line records ('l' records in .obj files, which Poser uses when writing out dynamic hair-guide-splines) into Splines within C4D.  You can then convert those splines to C4D Hair-Guide splines to use with it's Hair system.  Robert's interPoser Pro (a Poser file reader plugin for Cinema 4D) can also do this.

Unfortunately, neither plugin currently 'exports' these splines (back into a .obj file), so it's a one-way trip.

Quote - > Quote - Does your method account for all of the above?  Without resorting to comparing vertex-positions (assume they are morphed out of position)?

Yep!

Very nice! I don't suppose you'll be converting that code to C++ any time soon? :)  I'd love to study it more, but without knowing Scala, it's tough for me to separate language-construct from the method implementation.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Does your method account for all of the above?  Without resorting to comparing vertex-positions (assume they are morphed out of position)?

Yep!

Very nice! I don't suppose you'll be converting that code to C++ any time soon? :)  I'd love to study it more, but without knowing Scala, it's tough for me to separate language-construct from the method implementation.

Fair enough! I don't feel inclined to implement all the necessary data structures and input/output routines in C++, though. If you had something I could plug it into relatively easily, I might give it a go. :-)

Hi odf :)

Good to see you. Hope your move into busines for yourself prospers. 

I have been meaning to drop you a line.  I have a finished Antonia WM I am going to wait awhile to release it till the New Antonia package release gets off the ground.

Cheers,

Mike. 

Quote - Who's "Jim"?

James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise... The canonical quote is "it's worse than that, he's dead, Jim". This video won't be very funny if you aren't a Star Trek fan. 

Quote - Fair enough! I don't feel inclined to implement all the necessary data structures and input/output routines in C++, though. If you had something I could plug it into relatively easily, I might give it a go. :-)

This is your "meshes" suite that you told me about a while back? I'd like to see that worked up into something useable - I've been using the "symmetricalise" function quite a lot. However it doesn't always work. Even a little more documentation would be helpful, I suspect. ;)

Hmm, maybe I should just redo that whole thing in a proper, readable way and add a GUI.

Which language should I use, though? Python, Ruby, Javascript, Clojure or Haskell? :-)

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - > Quote - Does your method account for all of the above?  Without resorting to comparing vertex-positions (assume they are morphed out of position)?

Yep!

Very nice! I don't suppose you'll be converting that code to C++ any time soon? :)  I'd love to study it more, but without knowing Scala, it's tough for me to separate language-construct from the method implementation.

Fair enough! I don't feel inclined to implement all the necessary data structures and input/output routines in C++, though. If you had something I could plug it into relatively easily, I might give it a go. :-)

Hmm... are you on a PC?  I'm about to hit the sack, but after I get some sleep, I'll poke around and see if my S.T.O.M.P / Crunch (stand-alone windows gui, OpenGL 3d display, .obj file reader/writer, thingie) still compiles - I haven't messed with it for a few years, but it might be good enough to use as a test-bed.

@Spanki:

No, I'm not on a PC. I have a Windows VM on my Linux machine at home, but no C++ on it (yet). If your program needs Microsoft compilers or libs, I won't touch it, though. :-) Bummer, I didn't think of that. It's alright though, it's actually not too big an effort to redo the whole thing in something that's not Scala. It won't be C++, though, because I'm not a masochist. :-)

I like the idea of a STOMP / Crunch / meshes hybrid. That would be a mesh-wrangler's paradise.

Quote - Which language should I use, though?

INTERCAL.

:lol: 

Quote - I like the idea of a STOMP / Crunch / meshes hybrid. That would be a mesh-wrangler's paradise.

Quote - Which language should I use, though?

INTERCAL.

:lol: 

I should stop asking "which language" questions. Apparently, the answer is always INTERCAL. :-P

Quote - @Spanki:

No, I'm not on a PC. I have a Windows VM on my Linux machine at home, but no C++ on it (yet). If your program needs Microsoft compilers or libs, I won't touch it, though. :-) Bummer, I didn't think of that. It's alright though, it's actually not too big an effort to redo the whole thing in something that's not Scala. It won't be C++, though, because I'm not a masochist. :-)

D'oh! :).  Out of the languages you listed, my vote would be Python.

Quote - Out of the languages you listed, my vote would be Python.

Since the INTERCAL joke has apparently been done to death (and I was so sure I was being incandescently funny :) ), Python sounds good to me. If it would therefore permit (limited?) use within Poser, all to the better.

@ofd: Hi, good to see you back.

@odf: Python would be my vote too.

Have you ever seen Marvelous Designer? If posers cloth room (just the simulation not the design part) could work like that, no one would ever use conforming cloth again. But that would be too much of a challenge for some non brown coat. 

Poser-related hair-pulling-out-avoidance software = Poserbezogene Haarausraufvermeidungsanwendung... was für ein  Wortgeschoepf/what a creature of words if you translate it in german as we have this possibility to create new words by combining them. If I look at Leo's head it's too late for such tools but I still have something to loose so yes!

I'm very glad to see you here again, alive and in a whole - most of all full of plans.

In fact I have ideas enough for what would be needful and (maybe) can sell well. But you are right by not setting completely on this market as most of us have to stay with moderate demands when they call this their main income. On the other hand it can be time consuming and is always a kind of lottery.

If I could do a whish for a needful tool: Some script that can be sold with any product that is able to "knit" a specific node with all values into an existing shader tree - for instance a bump-map or displacment, regardless if there already is something plugged into the appropriate channel. And this without destroying the existing construction.

@SaintFox: I guess I'm just not "into" Poser and related things enough to want to make it my main source of income, whether or not that would be an easy thing to achieve. But also, I think my other interests might have a better chance to lead to contract work, and thus provide me with steady streams of income at least for a few months at a time. :-)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "knitting" a node into a shader tree. Could you give an example?

Unrelatedly, does anyone recall which Python versions ship with Poser 8 and 9?

Quote - Unrelatedly, does anyone recall which Python versions ship with Poser 8 and 9?

Should be Python 2.4.  Poser 8 has the Python24.dll.

Surely, Poser 9 will have Python 2.6. No?

Poser 9 and Pro 2012 use Python 2.7.

See, I have this pile of Python code here which I hear is being used in some kind of Poser-to-Lux exporter thingie. I wonder if I could patch some mesh-matching functionality into that, so that people could load morphs into Poser from OBJ files through a Python script, even if the line numbering is completely boggled up and the morph is so radical that checking vertex positions won't work.

I believe it's compatible to whichever Python runs on Poser 6, but if I could just restrict myself to supporting Python 2.4, 2.6 and 2.7, that would make some things a bit easier for me.

When I select a pose (e.g. SaintFox's poses), I wind up with her out of joint.

Using Antonia 1.2

I never get that in 1.0

Is there a workaround to this?

Quote - I believe it's compatible to whichever Python runs on Poser 6, but if I could just restrict myself to supporting Python 2.4, 2.6 and 2.7, that would make some things a bit easier for me.

I think Poser skipped Python 2.6.  Posers 5 and 6 used 2.2, IIRC, which is a very limiting version, lacking even such things as "enumerate".  If you're going to use Tk "askopenfilenames" in 2.7, there's a bug which requires a workaround, and Numeric was replaced with Numpy after 2.4.  Other than that, Python in Posers 7/8/PPro10 and 9/PPro12 is largely compatible.

Some body parts were renamed between 1.0 and 1.2.  The poses evidently use the 1.0 version body part names.

odf wrote the attached conversion script to convert files.  It processes entire folders, so you might want to copy the poses to a new folder before running the script.  It will rename 1.0 "Hip" to 1.2 "Waist" and 1.0 "Hip2" to 1.2 "Hip".

Quote - Which language should I use, though? Python, Ruby, Javascript, Clojure or Haskell? :-)

 

How about Rexx...

Thanks, Cage.  It did the trick!

No, more like 2.7, at least according to the Python Shell.

Quote - No, more like 2.7, at least according to the Python Shell.

Eh? 

And I was reading some interesting things about LOLScript and Shakespeare, yesterday.  :unsure:

Ergh. The answer was to the question which Python version P9 uses, but it seems that I've pressed the "send" button a bit to late. Sorry, please ignore my last post. 

These aren't the droids you are looking for. 

@jartz: The solution for the poses is simple: Please download them again, this looks as if you use the previous version for Antonia with the old naming for the bodyparts. I've updated everything to work with Antonia 1.2 when she was released. All actual poses can be found on Antonia's free site and here in my freestuff. Just allow the old files to be overwritten and the problem should be solved.

@odf: "Knitting" is my poor try to explain what I need... as a more complex material system uses several nodes conected together (like the stitches in a knitted cloth) I wish there would be a way, to plug a new node into this existing consctruction by keeping it's function - compelented by let's say a displacement node, a reflection node or such. This way you could use any material you have (let's say: A dull metal) and add a reflection node, a displacement or such by click when used. If I was still not able to express myself clear enough let me know and I try it in german or create a sample when I am home again on my working computer with Poser.

@ SFox: Thanks.  I managed to get everything sorted out well.

Good to know - regardless the fact that the poses are free it's important to me that they work without flaws.

The Python version discussion is why I would recommend JavaScript for the tools, ODF.  I have a similar problem with the late, lamented MetaForm:  it works reasonably well in Poser 6, but because Poser 7 switched Python versions, it dies.  And I'm up to Poser Pro 2010 and hoping to upgrade.

I'd hate to see a wonderful tool suddenly go belly-up just because the Python version changes.  And it will change; we know that.

I also think that your mesh tools would be very useful as a commercial product to developers.

Quote - The Python version discussion is why I would recommend JavaScript for the tools, ODF.  I have a similar problem with the late, lamented MetaForm:  it works reasonably well in Poser 6, but because Poser 7 switched Python versions, it dies.  And I'm up to Poser Pro 2010 and hoping to upgrade.

I'd hate to see a wonderful tool suddenly go belly-up just because the Python version changes.  And it will change; we know that.

I also think that your mesh tools would be very useful as a commercial product to developers.

Wait, does Poser have a Javascript API? Otherwise, I guess you're arguing imbedded in Poser versus standalone, no? Also, I think getting my Numeric-heavy code for the Lux exporter run under Poser 9 required only a miniscule change.

Not that I'd object to using Javascript. It's a fine language, and it's sometimes nice to be able to run stuff in the browser.

I don't know if Poser has a JavaScript API or not, to be honest.  I thought we were discussing a stand-alone item, with most people being dependent on the Python that comes with Poser.  (Although I just realized that if it IS a stand-alone app, then people could just download Python separately, and Poser could continue to cheerfully run on the version it comes with.  As far as I know, having multiple copies of Python isn't a problem.)

Although if using JavaScript let you run a stand-alone app in a browser, that would probably save a lot of work on a GUI for the thing . . .

Me not know.  Me just technician who dabble in programming.  Me use BASIC and ARexx a lot.

Poser only has a Python API.  Maybe you could try something with Jython, though.  :unsure:

I'm still kind of rootiung for Shakespeare, though.

You can have multiple installations of Python on a system but, unless they've changed something recently, the most recent installation will be the dominant one.  Which means when you run a script, that most recent Python version is invoked.  IIRC, special steps, using the command prompt, are necessary to run a script using an older Python installation.

Isn't Poser's Python completely separate from any other versions one might have installed on the system? It would be pretty foolish not to do that.

Quote - Isn't Poser's Python completely separate from any other versions one might have installed on the system? It would be pretty foolish not to do that.

Yes, Poser Python is separate from any other Python installations on a system.  Sorry, I was responding to a point I thought Thalek was raising, above, about running standalone Python.

Sounds like I was both right and wrong:  Multiple versions of Python not good.  Regular Python installation vs. Poser Python installation not a problem.  Am I correct, now?  Or am I even more confused than I feared?

Compatibility problems between different versions happen with all languages. Javascript is certainly worse in that respect than Python ever was or will likely be in the future. That hasn't kept anyone from writing programs yet. :-)

Diogenes is basically finished with his work on Antonia Polygon ~ WM version. It will now go to some others to harmonize it with the Standard version. It should be released soon.

Some renders of the joint flexability are posted in this thread.

lmk

All the best.

LROG

A gallery of renders is already available at RuntimeDNA. Have a look. More will be added. :)

lmk