Hi everyone - I'm the new guy.  I've got a question of how Max & Poser play together via Poser Fusion.  I've attached a JPG that shows what I've got to do.  I'm doing a bird's eye flyover of a transparent building, and I'd like to include some walking / posing humanoids colored as silhouettes, not fully rendered.  Does anyone know if this is doable using Poser Pro 2012, Poser Fusion and MAX 2010 64-bit?  Ideally I'd like to host the Poser characters in my MAX scene and render out of there.  Poser Pro 2012 (w Poser Fusion) is $500.  Before I spend that $$, I sure would like to know if this software combo will do the trick.    

Thanks in advance for any help or info you can offer. 

"I'm doing a bird's eye flyover of a transparent building, and I'd like to include some walking / posing humanoids colored as silhouettes, not fully rendered."

Hi in my opinion it is not worth buying/learning poser pro 2012 just for this project.
why not just use the native Max bipeds&character animation tools for this if you dont need fully rendered/textured humans??.

Could save you a lot of time in the end.

Cheers

or look at Dosch design - I'm sure they'd have something

I've heard bad things about poserfusion but don't use it myself so that info is worth what you paid for it :)

It will work but it depends on how much patience you have.

It's been eons but PoserFusion is descended from Reiss Body Studio. RBS allows the host program to use and render Poser animations with the following caveat: each frame of the animation is one of a series of frozen / textured .objs. Said another way, using this system there is no way to "re-pose" your figure without first going back to Poser. This can be a hinderance compared to Vue for instance, which allows you to repose within it.

A less obvious issue to consider: even using a mid poly character (such as Jessie / James) will slow down your interface considerably. That is not to discourage you, but just thought you'd like to know before dropping $$$. Would probably second wolf359 and consider using biped or whatever, which I'm sure has its own obstacles.

Forgot to mention: if you decide to use PoserFusion, I would strongly recommend rendering each figure with alphas (and the building) and comp them in post. You can still get the job done and keep your hair =)

If you don't need the figures to move, but just still poses, it's better to export as .obj, or whatever else you want, from Poser, and then import to max so there is no direct link. Every time you update the poser file, it overwrites the materials in max (basically re-imports the whole thing), so it's a little more work to save the materials separately in Max, and re-apply them every time... assuming you plan on making materials in max.

I should add that I personally haven't tried animation from Poser to Max.

seems theres a lot of confusion with  poserfusion. its a powerful tool. i dont know how most people use it but heres my workflow...ill try to make this short and simple...

1. create scene in poser.

2.import into 3dsmax.

3.add pointcache modefier to each figure...carefully name cache files so you know which figure it goes to... record movement.

4.select all figures,props.

5.clone as copy.

1. dont deselect anything ...rightclick convert to editable mesh.

7.edit-select invert-delete.... gets rid of old poser files.

8.add pointcache modifier for each figure. load cache files you recorded earlier...you now have  a super stable animation that you can edit or add other  modifiers to.the original poser poser files crash if you try to do much with them.

...i can elaborate further if there is interest in this subject...

it works for me,I dont have a degree took quite a while for me to figure this out using trial and error i havent found much documentation on the subject, besides... who wants to read technical stuff anyways lol.

 so my response to the origional post is.... hell yeah... grab poserpro and with patience you can do just about anything you want with figure animation. this is one of the most powerful softwares out there... greately underestimated ...IMHO.

JAFO

Quote - seems theres a lot of confusion with  poserfusion. its a powerful tool. i dont know how most people use it but heres my workflow...ill try to make this short and simple...

1. create scene in poser.

2.import into 3dsmax.

3.add pointcache modefier to each figure...carefully name cache files so you know which figure it goes to... record movement.

4.select all figures,props.

5.clone as copy.

1. dont deselect anything ...rightclick convert to editable mesh.

7.edit-select invert-delete.... gets rid of old poser files.

8.add pointcache modifier for each figure. load cache files you recorded earlier...you now have  a super stable animation that you can edit or add other  modifiers to.the original poser poser files crash if you try to do much with them.

...i can elaborate further if there is interest in this subject...

it works for me,I dont have a degree took quite a while for me to figure this out using trial and error i havent found much documentation on the subject, besides... who wants to read technical stuff anyways lol.

 so my response to the origional post is.... hell yeah... grab poserpro and with patience you can do just about anything you want with figure animation. this is one of the most powerful softwares out there... greately underestimated ...IMHO.

JAFO

Thanks for the info.  I've started using 3DS Max in the last few months and it's incredible but I want to use it in conjunction with Poser Pro.  I'm going to try your modus operandi.

heres another tip... if you hide all objects in scene before saving, it will open instantly next time you open it. helpfull for those of us with outdated equipment.i normally just leave everything hidden with render hidden objects ticked, only unhiding what im editing at the time then rehide before saving

oh and dont forget to add a convert to poly modifier and remove isolated vertices ... there are a bunch of them ..

i normally update point cache after each operation to keep stack minimal... not completely necessary but helpfull. remember point count will change after removal of verts so save as a new scene  so you can backtrack if necessary.

if you need to change original scene you can update each figure seperately...its a lot faster .... only whats visable comes through into max so save time by hiding other figures or objects and save file ...it only loads whats left unhidden.... much faster...

hope everyone had happy holidays stay healthy.

JAFO

after loading file, first thing to do is make sure it loaded at 0,0,0 coordinates if updating is necessary it will come thru  seamlessly as long as its loaded at the same place.

JAFO