Every single time I've considered making a building set, I've run into the same problems. It seems fine to make the thing as close to reality as possible, with basements, lots of windows, opening doors, staircases and so forth but considering most people would use maybe one or two locations it's not always worth the hassle. Stonemason's way is most likely the best one. Also, consider most Poser users tend to get upset if they have to move away from the main "floor" area, too. It's a pain in the arse to move cameras around, so be prepared to provide "Go To" poses and appropriate cameras to go with them. Maybe it's better to make one medium density model for general scenes and several "sets" for specific locations. Thinking back, I bought Sanctum Arts' RDL7 set and with the hi res textures loaded, my system ran like a hobbled goat through treacle. Back then, my computer rig was pretty good for the time, too. I also remember people complaining back then about how difficult it was to move around the set, because of Poser's weird camera setup. @ Winterclaw - I believe you misunderstood. Triangulated meshes on hi poly models is a stupid waste of resources. Having never yet used Dynamic clothes I couldn't say what the effect is. I just know I have some really nice car models that are a complete fucker to use because of the tris.

I would love to see your subdivision.  Maybe I'm easilly impressed.

Love esther

Rendering with PP2012 using IDL in an HDR sphere gets Poser and FFrender up to 1.8 GB between them ..

GAWD...what a mess...lol. That is a LOT of unnecessary polygons...lol. For one, what's with all the split quads? They should have all been changed back to quads again. That's nothing but laziness right there ;).

Laurie

^wow thats ridiculous.

i cant believe someone modeled something that haphazard and inefficient. perhaps it was modeled in NURBS and what we are looking at is a program's automatic mesh conversion?

thats about what my meshes looked like 10 years ago when i modeled them in NURBS in Rhino.

That would be my guess too. That guy does not use Silo, I'm sure about that... 

Hmm, I think I change my mind again. Can you sell that junk it cannot be so difficult. Besides most of the cloth looks like horror too - painted on the body without natural fall and folds. I can do better even without endless 'posterizing', we'll see.

Models should not come only in one format. Poser is ok but even obj and Vue versions must be provided. Cloth should come with both dynamic and conforming version in the same package.

Can't count the hours I spent fixing them to make them at least somewhat useable in Poser. Most often 50.000 polygons each tires are the main culprit.

But sometimes you come along a car that was a little too optimized for Poser.

The DAZ VW Bug is perhaps the best 3D VW I've ever seen. Vintage VWs are the hardest thing to model as every angel and line has to be exactly right.

Sadly it stems from the Poser 4 and 250mb RAM machines days where really every polygon counted.

It can't be smoothed either as otherwise some body parts will explode.

Here it is in all it's blocky glory:

Not finished yet but I think you can see the difference:

keep me posted on how your castle is coming along, my knight needs a new place to live :-)

Quote - The DAZ VW Bug is perhaps the best 3D VW I've ever seen. Vintage VWs are the hardest thing to model as every angel and line has to be exactly right. Sadly it stems from the Poser 4 and 250mb RAM machines days where really every polygon counted.

It can't be smoothed either as otherwise some body parts will explode.

I had looked forward to getting it for a long time.  I finally bought it and was heartbroken when I rendered it. :crying: 

Back it went...

Quote - ... I had looked forward to getting it for a long time.  I finally bought it and was heartbroken when I rendered it. :crying: ...

Because ??? :blink:

Quote - > Quote - ... I had looked forward to getting it for a long time.  I finally bought it and was heartbroken when I rendered it. :crying: ...

Because ??? :blink:

For the reasons and renders JP cites, plus it is $24.95, IIRC.  If it had been $6, I probably would have kept it and futzed around...

Yeah, I really hate when stuff renders blocky and ugly like that....lol. It sort of destroys the whole "realism with 3D" thing ;).

Laurie

In Posers Group editor.

You can make a group; Bodywork.
Select all Poly's of the Blue bodywork.
Leave the bumpers and tires and so on alone.

And use Posers smoothing option for the bodywork group (the option is included in the Group edotor to do that.

Set crease angle to 180 for that Bodywork group only.

WandW posted exactly what I'm talking about with the sports car from DAZ.  I have several cars like that.  What a complete and utter pain in the arse they are.

Then there are others where the polys are quads but the creator went bugfuck with smoothing and ended up with 40 bazillion polys on the door.  What on earth were they thinking? 

It's the running boards that bulge out when you use Firefly smoothing. (Among other things) And they are part of the body group.

Another problem is that the bodyparts are just split to keep the sharp creases without adding any polys by bevelling edges.

Makes it very hard to smooth adjacent bodypanels.

You really have to smooth everything manually and then stitch it back together.

It's a shame, really.

There are other Bugs out there that are smoother, but no one catches the shape of the original that accurately.

"Then there are others where the polys are quads but the creator went bugfuck with smoothing and ended up with 40 bazillion polys on the door.  What on earth were they thinking"

Yep. There's a 56' Ford Sunliner cabriolet on ShareCG.

Great shape, but the polygon count is so high it won't even load.

Rule of thumb: If the object file for a Poser car is over 1-2 mb, it's most likely useless.

$$$ ... ???  Looks like 8 bucks to me, no?! :huh:

When it was first released it was on offer, Doc.  Later the price went up, IIRC.  Evidently it went back down again.  :)

Dudley's VW, yes?  I have it, too.  Not used it for ages. 

Quote - > Quote - For the reasons and renders JP cites, plus it is $24.95, IIRC.  If it had been $6, I probably would have kept it and futzed around...

$$$ ... ???  Looks like 8 bucks to me, no?! :huh:

That's not the same model, Dr. G.  That one is higher poly, but isn't shaped as nicely and lacks some details such as the motor.  The one in question is here...

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/1955-eu-auto?item=804

I use Dalmatiner's VW from ShareCG, but I'd like a better one...

Ok, thanks for the correction.

Cheers

Nice render.

 Hi Gabe

I thought that was the case! I'd rather morph V4 any day. I suppose one could use displacement maps-but as has been pointed out-that does not solve everything. Give that computers are getting faster-and RAM is cheaper-I'd rather have the option of a 70K Genesis to work with. I've not seen ANY comments that Daz would be willing to release such a version.

Even V4's nose is a little light on polys- Many people have a crease in the tip-there are not enough polys to make that morph. I've NEVER seen anyone with a displacement map solution either-and never seen a V4 with that nose feature-quite common in the real world.

Quote - ^i was referring to the actual genesis in DS4. 19k polys then :P

its a step backwards in terms of morphing since to create clean, advanced morph shapes you need mesh density. a super low res mesh and sub-D isnt going to cut it, youll usually end up with doughy-looking morphs.

Of course you can not solve everything with displacement/normal maps but it is far too underused IMO.

 I agree with your humble opinion! Just saying that a respectable proportion of the population has a vertical crease at the tip of the nose- as if two halves are not completely joined- and there were not enough polys to make that in V4's nose-someone who is good with D maps might be able to do that. I've yet to see a single image showing that in a render.

I only noticed it when making celebrity likenesses a few months back with Zbrush. I have yet to learn how to make good D maps as I am new to Zbrush. My attempts with Pshop brushes were NOT great. :-)

Quote - Of course you can not solve everything with displacement/normal maps but it is far too underused IMO.

Check out the new nDo that outperform Crazybump from all directions.

(http://quixel.se/forum/index.php?topic=7.0)

not to take business away from anyone, but there are TONNES of free VW meshes to be found on the net. some may be in .3ds format, and can be converted. most wont have UV maps or textures. but cars, star wars, star trek, etc models are a dime a dozen online :)

i miss Rhino. it was so intuitive to model in it. a shame that an object modeled in NURBS is about as useful as a kickstand on a submarine.

fantastic work though!  i would love one for my comic (a lower poly one with poses and textures).  Maybe you can start that project again one day.

Love esther

Blackhearted,

Very nice work.

"an object modeled in NURBS is about as useful as a kickstand on a submarine"

Not if you are going to manufacture it.. !

"there are TONNES of free VW meshes to be found on the net"

Maybe so but for every free model you find on the net there is ten(10) that sells for $50 and up...like this, http://www.the3dstudio.com/product_search.aspx?id_category_0=1&search=Volkswagen&id_affiliate=242147

Today in 2012 perfect mesh is more important then ever. The market is insatiable for 3d models if they are properly done.

Quote - Cloth should come with both dynamic and conforming version in the same package.

Yeah...highly impractical. There are some things conforming cloth does better than dynamic, and vice versa. To use two simple examples, there's no way a conforming cape can come close to the performance of a dynamic one, whereas a dynamic suit of armour is rather pointless.

When you use Marvelous Designer you need to retop for conforming cloth but you get the dynamic version more or less free.

Well, so far modeling the castle, and I have 78649 Polys.  I've started on the main structure now.  

I have the outside walls done, and so far with alot of detailing too.  Suprised its that little Poly count. 

I appreciate everyone's thoughts on this, gives me stuff to think about while I'm working on it to keep the public happy. 

Thanks again

Honestly, without pictures its hard to say if you are shooting too high or not.

Something else to consider.. could the walls be broken down so only the parts showing would have to be loaded? In most renders, the back of the castle might not even be seen. (Plus having removable wall allows camera control inside the castle much better.)

Think of it less like a solid structure, and more like a movie set, with parts that come apart for filming.

Thank for those tips Gareee, I appreciate it.  I'm just trying to be secretive as to what castle it is I'm doing, so ideas aren't popping into other merchant's heads ;-).  Gotta have something original on the market, and I think this one will be.  

I'll definitely keep the "movie set" suggestion in mind.  I like that idea.

I understand completely. I wouldn't break flat walls in two, but back, front sides, and maybe turret or roof parts can be separately loaded.

Something else to consider, is parts might be reused as new castle parts. (Look at the product description images in my fantasy castle plus product at Daz for ideas.)

That product has been quite successful for me, probably because there is such a big installed base of stonemason products.

I know its more packaging work hell, but if it ends up a more versitile item, there is a larger potential customer market.

Ahhh, thanks for tip on what walls to break.

It's kind of different because it has about 6 towers, and the inner structure is really sprawled out.  I'll have to figure out how to do it. 

Glad your castle is a success, am hoping this one will be too when it's finished

Well, mine wasn't a castle of my own making. I saw Stonemason's fantasy castle, and saw a bunch of missed oppertunities, so I created them. its basically a morph/break apart of Stephan's set.

Some parts were separated, and others were reassembled with morphs added so his original parts could be repurposed. And since there were a number f alternate textures sets made available, I made sure all of those could be used with the new parts as well.

I did the same things with Daz's skeletons. That way end users could load things like just a skull, various bones, or even a skull and crossbones prop which had all the features of the original skeleton.

That skeleton expansion was VERY popular, since I also added a bunch of morphs to the skull and even added scaling and morphs o the skeleton itself.

But that said, that set was also a bitch to work on, and I learned all the proper bone names, since they are all anatomically properly named in the original skeleton.

Funny what we learn along the way, eh?

Oh yes, most certainly is funny what we learn -- the castle I'm recreating I'm learning all about its history, so it's a very interesting process at least....

I also didn't know a thing about 3D modeling 2 years ago until I taught myself, and still learning more every day, LOL

But that's a good thing --- Don't mind learning new stuff, keeps the day intersting that way.  

Quote - Hey all --

Just looking for your input here.

I'm working on a very detailed castle set right now for Poser -- What point does it become too many Polygons for a model?

When they stop serving a purpose. Never use two, or five or 20 polygons for someting that one polygon will do in the same manner.