Some tips if anybody would like to work with the lower poly figures.

Set Smoothing to ON in the render settings.
Set smoothing to ON in all groups parameters palette and I set crease angle at is MAX level of 180°.

Yes, working with higher resolution textures, (I used a 8192x8192 texture above) does show, and it increases the render quality.

Also, I sharpen my textures slightly=> Why??
As you can see in the materail room, I use the texture for other things too.

It drives the Blinn and it goes (indirect) through the Blender into Bump and Displacement too.
This, together with the turbulence, gives the skin a more natural look when you want to do close-ups.

Happy Posering, Tony

ha-ha-ha-, no Rcharson

Sorry man, that comment : "They are completely useless", was an internal joke about the usability of these lower poly figures.. => They are usable.

And, yes ! YES!! cranking the texture up to 8192x8192 did increase the render quality output a lot. It is a pitty it is not visible in the compressed jpg I added.

See the above post;

By using a higher resolution texture all that follows increases in quality too.
The bump, the displacement, the blinn, all nodes that are driven by the better texture, all profit from this increase in texture resolution.

Skin details and the bump and displacement details are washed out with the jpg compression I had to use.

@LauriA :Special post for you.

1. You wrote: My PC slows down when I use high res textures.

Answer:
Yes, but most vendors provide body, face, and limbs textures. All around 4000x4000 pixels. And?? And they also provide specular and bump textures, all in that size.

All these textures add up and eat memory.

I ONLY use a single BIGGER texture, but I do not use a separate bump or specular map.
I drive bump, displacement and specular(Blinn) with the same (slightly sharpened) texture combined with the turbulence node.
My memory consumption stays under contol this way.

1. If you are serious about: How do you morph that?
   I wil answer that one too.
   Or, LOL, was that a sarcastic comment? LOL.

Have a nice day, Tony

Quote - @LauriA :Special post for you.

1. If you are serious about: How do you morph that?
   I wil answer that one too.
   Or, LOL, was that a sarcastic comment? LOL.

Have a nice day, Tony

No I was serious...lol. Let's say I only have three vertices in a cheek. How do I do anything with that really? LOL. 

Laurie

LaurieA => I have to go out now, but will come back to that later.
You have Hexagon?
Sure you have.

3 vertices in a cheek?? ha-ha-ha- Poser1 figure?

I LOVE those.....to test with.

How would they look with a 8192x8192 remap????
Don't ask, you might get it.... LOL.

Of course I have Hexagon :P

Laurie

Hey, Tony...

I've been following your experiments with low poly for years.

I'm not asking this to be a jerk. I really want to know the answer.

When and where will I be able to buy your figures? As LaurieA has pointed out they would be incredibly useful as backgrounders and fillins. I, personally, would buy them! (Assuming they have clothes, etc to support them.)

If you are not offering them for sale, then I'm curious as to why you have invested what is obviously tons of time in them. I'm sorry. I really have no skill as a modeller, and 90% of what you say goes right over my head, so it's of no help to me personally. I wish it was.

I'm not on your case or anything. I'm just interested in where your low-poly experiments are leading. I think you have a lot to give to the community in this quest, and would like to see it pay off for you.

Hello Basicwiz

Thank you for your interest, and NO, you are not a jerk.

The past:
I started in Poser when it al started, back with Poser1.
Having a busy job, Poser was, and could never be more then a hobby.

At the time, I experimented a lot, and a lot, and a lot.
Oh dear, I still do not know a % of what BB knows.

Soon I started thinking??? Why are they all so ugly.....
And I wanted to change them but did not have the tools.

Poser1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. . . .
I gave up after the Poser5 figures.
From Poser6 on the figures became too high in Poly count to work with.

I searched the Internet and found anim8or.com

A - V E R Y - basic and simple modelling app that could read and write obj files.

Morphing was; Point, by point, by point, by point.
Select ONE point and put it somewhere else. Point by point by point.

Some versions mater you could select more points, but anim8or stayed a very BASIC 3D app.
Anim8or died before soft selection, before displacement or all the other new stuff was in it.

So??? To morphl?? What do you choose???

A LOW poly model, because you know you will have to select each and every point, one at a time, to move them.

Voila, that is where it all started.

But?

Very deep in my mind, I KNEW and I KNOW, that not a single person on earth was doing the same thing and had any interest in the LOW poly figures : NON existing .
None, nichts, rien du tout.
Support? None.
Friendship? NONE
I had to discover and find everything out on myself.

Yes, yes, yes, I had High performance PC's all my life. Computing power was never the problem.

But I do not like the buy, click and pose, ready dress, and render.
Where is the satisfaction in that? (Personal opinion)

Over the years I did show some results.
Most treads where dead ends pretty - pretty fast. No interest at all and lots of jokes about the LOW poly guy. Yours truly.

By now everybody should know my preference.
Every poly HAS to DO something in 3D.

My blood temperature goes up when I see the next 100.000 poly figure on the horizon. => I have absolutely nothing against High Poly.
But it HAS to be justified with body topology.

If it is just; "The next subdivided Low Poly model". => Hey forget it man, I can do that myself if I need it.

And sorry to say, but most new figures are just that: Subdivided Low Poly models. Absolutely NO extra topology to justify the high polycount.

That is what this tread was all about.

Ha, you want to buy...

Sorry man, if I can not give them away for free, they will stay here. J

As soon as money gets involved it is not a hobby any more.
But if I can help somebody I will do so with the biggest of smiles.

Poser is my hobby, my passion, and it will stay so.

Usability:
Biggest problem is above.

Interest in these figures is none.
Support is none.
Clothing availability is none.
Shoes, hair, none.
if you want something? You will have to make it. No body else does.

Unfortunately:
I think I can say I can morph.
I think I can say I can make a dress, a shoe, pants, shirts and so on.
Unfortunately, that is not my speciality, and certainly not "for sale quality".

Due to the low interest, I never put anything is free stuff either.
Why?
Not another soul on this planet is using these figures.

But I have made some "on request” morphed figures and items for them.

Leading to?
Leading to only one thing; PPS

Pure Personal Satisfaction.

Being able to do something, no body else does.

Make something form nothing.

KISS, with more SSSSSSSSSSSS. For extra simplicity.

Obtaining 90% f the result with 10% of the resources.

NO, they are not V4 replacements, and they never will.

But whenever I see the next High Poly Subdivided LOW Poly figure appear and they ask a ***** amount of money for it?
The hair in my neck starts to curl.

Poly count, LOW or HIGH , HAS to be justified with topology.

The same for “hidden” things.

I model, I rig,
I have been doing it for years and years.
But never - ever did I have the need for hidden magnets or bones.
The same hair comes up my neck when I read those.

And then, the icing on the cake; the builder asking why no body wants to build for his/her figure?

Hey, model and rig without all those hidden things.
All they do is make things more complicated as they should be.

A content creator has a time versus income mind.

Build KISS, and they will build for you.

 
Thanks for the opportunity to explain.

Tony

Tony,

God Bless you.

Thanks for taking the time to "asplain" the low-poly "concept" (and your personal observations re: the same) - I could not agree more with 99.9% of what you just posted.  What is the 0.1%? Dunno, I'd need a few years to think about that. :lol:

(many) cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Thanks Doc Geep.

And now I'm gonna invest some time in LaurieA's tutorial.
Poser to Hex to Poser.
I might as well explain my compete workflow.

Why?
You'll see.
That too is special, and I do not think anyone else does it this way.

Think about it.

ha-ha-ha- And forget the first part  "Poser to Hex". :-)

There was a question in another tread about this, so I might as well do the whole thing.

Best regards, and Happy Posering to all.

Attached Link: Visit the author's website here

Have you seen this low-poly model done in Blender and may be downloaded FREE.
(under 3D Models)

It is NOT my creation but I feel it is well done.  You might want to check it out.

From the author:
"This is the my second complete lowpoly model
It's a simple modelling/texturing/rigging exercise.
She's 2577 triangles with hairs and skirt with two 512512 colormaps and alpha."*

*cheers,
dr geep
;=]

P.S. I  will post a couple more images just to tease you. :lol:

she needs a tutoral? dude, she's a wiz at making dresses in wings > poser then making them Dynamics...

I think she can actually model.. so....

Enjoy.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

@ MangusGreel

Thank you for saving me a lot of spare hobby time that I can use in a more productive way now.

What needed to be said has been said.
What needed to be shown has been shown.

Tread can be closed.

Tony Vilters
Captain-Commander
Belgian Air Force
Retired.

It's ok vilters. I wanna see how YOU do it ;). I can't work with just a couple verts ;).

Laurie

And yes there are limitations when going extremely old and Lo Res figures.

Area render :

Left is artistic freedom
Middle is as above
Right is proof that it is indeed the Poser 1 female.

The one that got this Poser 3D going.

Click 

Quote -
The one that got this Poser 3D going.

Click 

Yeah, but that was 1995-97 ;) 17 otherwise long and technically advancing years.

Laurie

@ vilters

Absolutely AMAZING !!! ...

I really like the face and especially the eyes ...
could we see a close up of the face, sil vous plait? :blink:

But here you go.

Remember, all you see is texture, on a morphed figure.

i used an asian face pic I found on the net to start the texture from.
The only liberty I took was enlarge the face area on the uvmap.

Click

it is texture you see
it is texture you render.

Some are pretty angry when I write this:
But a mesh is just a wireframe to hang a texture on.

But yes, I morph and re-rig the mesh.
But I keep a close look at how the texture behaves.

Just pulling and pushing points around does not work.
You have to keep an eye on the texture when you do that.

it is an interaction, between texture, mesh, and rigging.

Ignore one of them and you are ***
I often go in and out of Poser, Hex, Picture Publisher, to X check, untill satisfied.

I am NOT looking for total realism ...
(for that, I use a mega-pixel digital camera and a real live person):lol:

May we see another close up of the face like this (above - but larger) with the understanding that it is not really intended for close ups.

I am amazed at what you have been able to achieve using a low poly figure.

I have always been in "love" with low poly stuff, both figures and props.

Just because we have faster uPs, more memory, etc., ...  does not mean we need to use it and push the limits, n'est pas? :lol:

P.S.
Is anyone interested in forming a "Low Poly" Club (LPC) ?
I can see some real challenges there.
Creating and sharing modeling techniques, texturing tricks, morphing models, etc.
Just a thought from your humble co-poster. :biggrin:

Some are pretty angry when I write this: But a mesh is just a wireframe to hang a texture on.

Yes, but you will need a different texture for every expression you want. With a texture like that you can use as well a low-res primitive sphere. I don't see any use in low-res figures.

best regards,

Bopper.

Quote - Some are pretty angry when I write this: But a mesh is just a wireframe to hang a texture on.

Yes, but you will need a different texture for every expression you want. With a texture like that you can use as well a low-res primitive sphere. I don't see any use in low-res figures.

best regards,

Bopper.

Oops.

Bopper,

With all due respect, one can create different facial expressions using morphs on a low poly figure without necessarily needing to alter the tex map.

Yes, no, maybe??? :blink:

Geep, here is the deal. :-)

You send me a digital high resolution, purpose taken frontal picture.

And I"ll put it on, I"ll morph to fit, and send the result back.

Yes, yes, I"ll put some clothes on her.. :-)

tony.vilters@pandora.be

@ bobberthijs

The Poser 1 female is difficult. => Very few Poly's in the head.

But as from (and including) the Poser 4 Lo Res figures, I can morph all facial and mouth expressions you can dream of.

bed time
See you all tomorrow.

Tony,

Sleep well ........................... later.

That's not what I had in mind but I don't have time right now to discuss.

I'll be back later and would love to continue the discussion.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

With all due respect, one can create different facial expressions using morphs on a low poly figure without necessarily needing to alter the tex map.

I agree, but what I see is a texture with a smiling face with teeth showing., projected on a model with a rudimentary face structure.

Bopper.

Correct bopper, but here I am showing morphing, texturing and rendering possibilities on a 17 year old mesh..

And these last ones where with extremely LOW render settings.
A fraction of what PP2012 can do. No IDL, no SSS.

Let us not forget ; Poser 1 figures do have their limitations.
I am first in line to agree.

This is the Poser 1 (one) figure remember? :-)

To explain my point of view: I like to make characters and look-a-likes and facial expressions with V4 and I love the versability of the head, which is made possible by the big amount of polygons it has. Generally I start with dialing until I have the shape or expression I want and use Zbrush for tweaking and making some finer details. When you have shapes like eyes, lips, noses and ears, you just need finer details on the mesh, so more polygons. IMHO only small skindetails like pores, wrinkles, moles, freckles  are suitable for textures. You have to fine-tune the mesh with bump or normal and displacement maps, but a good mesh can do without that.

Bopper.

This is the Poser 1 (one) figure remember? :-)

I remember, I think she is the reason why I stopped after poser3, until I discovered V3 and Poser 5. ;-)

No, just kidding. I think it's hard to get anything realistic out of poser 1

Only geometry can.

(Or, to a certain extent, a displacement map)

Attached are three renders of M4 using WERTS face morphs of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

The all use exactly the same texture, so the sole reason they actually look like Kirk, Spock and McCoy is the shape of the vertices.

As the geometry can interact with Poser's light, they will continue to look like Kirk, Spock and McCoy regardless what lights I use in the render.

A super low res figure with a photorealistic texture projected onto it will only look good in a type of light that exactly matches the type of light that was used when the picture was taken.

The same is true for muscle definition. You can fool the eye by painting it on top of the texture, but it won't look good in varying lighsets.

As you know, I'm all for mesh efficiency, but a realistic 3D model is anything but a mere coathanger for a texture.

A well made 3D human figure will, like a classical statue, even look believeable without any texture at all.

Quote - A well made 3D human figure will, like a classical statue, even look believeable without any texture at all.

Yes. And if it's a celebrity, it may even be recognizable.

Bookmark

Perhaps some of you low poly lovers could explain to me why you like low poly so much. Is it because you wanna fill up your scenes with people and not bog Poser down or do you truly like the way they look (which I'll never understand in a million years). Or is it that you can simply say "My scene is as low poly as possible" with no real aesthetic reasons?

Inquiring minds wanna know ;)

I'm being serious btw...not bashing anyone.

Laurie

I bought loretta and lorenzo lorez to use as background fillers. Even with the powerful machine I'm running a dozen Mike and Vicki's tend to make it groan.

I definately don't use them even in medium shots. They stick out like a sore thumb.

Dr. Geep:

Quote - I :wub: Low Poly.

Love it!

I can do background people one polygon each.

I'm not impressed.

I can even "model" them in Poser itself.

Render a figure in any pose you like wearing anything you like, and export as PNG.

Start a new scene and load as many of these as you need onto one-sided squares.

Stacy Westfall gives that answer in her first demo video on tube you :-)
I think both demo video's are from 2007.
Her championship run is from 2006, and her demo's from 2007.

Quote - I can do background people one polygon each.

I'm not impressed.

I can even "model" them in Poser itself.

Render a figure in any pose you like wearing anything you like, and export as PNG.

Start a new scene and load as many of these as you need onto one-sided squares.

Now why didn't I think of that... Never mind... I know the answer.

Seriously, that's a great answer, and one I never even considered. And the lighting will even match! It's a perfect solution.

Question: Will a PNG automatically have a transparent background, or do I have to set that up somewhere, and if so, where?

And if you have little time, buy them.

http://www.lowpolygon3d.com/index.php?app=ecom&ns=catshow&ref=2D+People+Images

Hehe..I used to use a lot of billboards (which is basically what they are) in Vue d'Esprit back in the day.

I've never used em in Poser tho. Dunno why...the opportunity just never came up I guess ;). Not that they wouldn't work - they'd actually look better than low poly for background filler without the hit in performance. You can make the images  lot smaller too because they're far away.  Even the clothed Poser 4 people in business suits would work for that ;)

Laurie

Quote - And if you have little time, buy them.

http://www.lowpolygon3d.com/index.php?app=ecom&ns=catshow&ref=2D+People+Images

Or just take a day or a weekend and render up some ppl in different positions...hehe. I'm cheap :P

Laurie

http://www.doschdesign.com/products/vizimages/Artlantis_Billboards_People_On_The_Move.html

Attached Link: Billboard example

You are all so funny.
I just dropped from my dual Poly chair, on my tripple poly gound, with my 4 poly smile.

Ok, we must be close to the zero poly finish now.

Never thought it would take that long.

4 pages?? Must be some lo poly record for the books.

Had a zip ready for he/she that would come back with the "why" answer, but It can go back into the archives.

Oh dear, oh dear, the knifes are sharp tonight.

Why?

Because I can.   

Make something from nothing.

if you did not understand that , you never understood the purpose in the first place.

it is also what Stacy says: "Because I can"

And unlike others, I have the deepest respect for the people that "can" and do stick their neck out.

Happy Posering
Best regards
Tony

Edit; read my last words from the very post again. OK?