you know. I know why I don't use poser that much anymore.

cos for me, it's crippled

* I can load, rig, I can use the cloth room and the hair room...*  but I can't texture. that room is locked off from me..

oh I can use the mat room to apply bitmaps. but to do anything more , you need to be a programmer or have a PHD or to use someonelses work, something that is a personal no no.

so.. whats the point in using poser for a crap job, when in other apps I can just go "metal, steel, this map with it" and hit render....? where I don't need to program the texture from base units using a programming language, I can just do it?

*I'm spending more and more time in Sketchup now. I've not started Poser in a month. rendered in poser.. I think that was 2 months ago.. something with textures on it.. over six months ago.

Khai - I have that script working in Poser. But it's just not ready for commercial use.

In a window you select one or more materials from the current prop/figure.

A checkbox enabled implies you're selecting those same on any other props or figures that look similar. For example, multiple copies of the same prop chair.

You drag an image into this window. It applies the image to the shaders that are there, without messing them up.

You drag a material (mt5 or mc6) into this window. it applies the shader to the images that are there, without messing them up.

There's also a checkbox to say that when you drag a mat file, you want it to blow away the whole target - use what's in the mat file. This still helps with multiple objects a ton.

Oh - I'm also making it have pre-defined groups of materials. These are virtual selections you can make. For example, when you select a V4 figure, it automatically offers "skin" and "nails" as auto-selection groups so you can just drag a skin shader onto "Skin" and it goes to all the right places without you doing anything.

These groups will be editable by you.

erm no... BB? thats not what I said.

ok. lets see here. I can apply bitmaps. no problems. but I want to make it steel? well I need to use one of YOUR shaders or program one.

I can't program one. I can't program, period. I've tried many times to learn, I just can't do it.

using yours is out. it's not my work.

*your script sounds good.. but it's not what I was talking about. thats YOUR work. not mine.

Keep us updated on that BB. I'm interested..lol.

Laurie

(the quintessential material room dummy)

Khai - when in other apps you go "metal steel" that's not your work either. I don't understand.

That's twice in one day I've heard that there's something terrible about 3rd party material presets. I don't get it.

I think he means he doesn't know how to set up a decent shader for an item he may want to sell or give away ;) Doesn't understand the material room at all.

Edit: there's nothing terrible, just something a person can't use on something they make to give out ;).

Laurie

forget it. the thread is now hijacked. carry on with your advert.

Are you referring to not being allowed to distribute my shaders? You mean you want merchant resource shaders? I've been thinking about that. It's another plugin I have in the works. It would be a tool you use to generate materials, which you can redistribute if you like. Not the tool, the materials it makes.

It would be a simple GUI and the resulting materials would not have all the node gizmos I usually provide. Thus - it would work fine to texture your prop, but not so much be an infinite supply of variations for whoever buys your prop.

X-Post: Advert? Man you're a cynical fuck. Thought you'd be interested in a solution to your problem. I guess you just want ears to hear you. Got cheese?

Quote - using yours is out. it's not my work.

If you are using the preset in Sketchup, that's someone else's work too; or am I missing something?

forget it. the point is lost. I am not using presets sigh

seems I can't speak english on this.

"Man you're a cynical fuck. Thought you'd be interested in a solution to your problem. I guess you just want ears to hear you. Got cheese?"

you missed the point entirely. let put it plainly. I want to do it. not have you or anyone else do it. I want to be able to learn to do it. you stepped in with a script that could do it thats for sale. that's not what I was saying I wanted at all.

I don't want to buy the fish. I want to fish.

You're right, I missed the point. And even now I still can't reconcile what your original post was about, versus what you're saying now.

You want to be able to make a shader? And you can't? So Poser is crippled? You said it's crippled. It's crippled because you want to make shaders but instead you go to sketchup and choose presets?

"where I don't need to program the texture from base units using a programming language, I can just do it?"

You want to do it in Poser, but not with presets? What does that mean? You're not doing it in sketchup.

I'm sorry, I don't get exactly what you're saying. Nowadays, I don't render anything that doesn't have something in it that BB has graciously given to the Poser community. Anything he has publically published can be used for freestuff items. I'm with Laurie, I know enough about Poser's material room to get around but I do not have the math skills that BB has. He can create in Poser shaders that have realworld properties, I cannot do that, hence I am ever so grateful to download a shader when he publishes one.

Khai, is it fair to say you'd like some tutorials on how to get the best out of nodes?

"Crippled" for HIM. Said it in the first sentence...lol

Edit: Ok, so it was the second sentence ;)

Laurie

hang on hang on

let me try and sort this out.

it's crippled to ME. as in, the material room is something I can't use. lacking the materials, I've not done much with poser in sometime.

maybe someone can help me out here ... I'm trying to explain here ok?

having someone elses work in mine is something I try to avoid. eg I wanted a desk, so I picked up tools, learnt woodwork and made one. the earphone socket on my walkman broke, so I learnt to repair circuits. I wanted to show off my ideas so I learnt to model.

right now, I can't texture. I can't learnt cos frankly, and this is a real admission, I can't even get a column of figures to add up the same twice. program a shader? I might as well move to the moon.hey, build you a door, a brick wall, a computer, plumb your house, even change a tire - mainly with no teaching, I just picked it up as I went along, no problems, thats simple. I can see how that works and I can just do it.  (and it's to code.. I do good solid work)

in other apps, I can mix colors and effects such as simple built in metal shaders etc. can't do that in poser, the mat room does not allow it. it's program from scratch or baby talk. theres no middle ground.

to use an anology, I walk into a paint shop and ask for a tube of paint. they hand me one, I can then mix that how I want.

in poser, I ask for a tube of paint. I'm handed the keys to a chemical plant. thats it. find your own way. and once you've done that, then you can mix it...and get on with it. oh wait, you still have to mix the other paints to do that...

I can't mix my paint up in poser. I have to rely on others and thats alien to me. so. right now, posers losing it's appeal to me.

I was trying to just tell anyone why I'm basically out of it now. not try and start any fights.

oh I missed the really evil part.

*I can see how the shaders work in general. I can follow them. I just don't know how they work.. I don't have the basic math to know what they symbols mean... but I follow the gist if thats the right word

Pardon, I carefully re-read your post. You are a 'needs to be all my own work' kind of person? I can relate to a degree because I am a render purist myself. I try to produce works in Poser that I do not need to post work. But if an elbow is messed up, it just has to be fixed in post. When it comes to shaders, even in Sketchup, you are using the program's internal material preset with the addition of the texture you added. Maybe my opinion, but these days to get 'all my own work' in 3d, you'd have to build the modeling program yourself because when you use any 3d program you are using someone's base technology to begin making shader sets. I guess it depends on how far in a purist way you wish to go.

No Liz...it's not THAT complicated...lol

He just doesn't understand what the nodes are doing or how to string them together. I know cause that's where I'm at ;). If you sell something you can add your node setup along with it or you'd have to tell ppl to just add the textures themselves...lol. Wouldn't go over too well I'd imagine ;). For my own part, I understand some things a little better after BB  helped me with the gem shaders. But I'm far from understanding everything or how to set them up. Now I can pretty well set up a gem shader..but there's everything else...lol.

Laurie

I never ever said I wanted to go that far latexluv. ever. I just wanted to make my own things with the tools I have. please to avoid fights, don't put words in my mouth here, I never wanted that in the first place.

I'm not sure why you draw a distinction between BB suggested script and, for example, a steel material built into the program....  How is using BBs or anyone elses pre-defined preset different fromusing the programs internally pre defined preset?

Quote - erm no... BB? thats not what I said.

ok. lets see here. I can apply bitmaps. no problems. but I want to make it steel? well I need to use one of YOUR shaders or program one.

I can't program one. I can't program, period. I've tried many times to learn, I just can't do it.

using yours is out. it's not my work.

*your script sounds good.. but it's not what I was talking about. thats YOUR work. not mine.

meatsim before we carry on, please read the rest of the posts. we'll avoid fights.

I'm not sure why ppl have latched onto this preset thing. it's not what I was talking about from the start here. can we please drop it?

The point is being missed. He wants to KNOW how it works for his own work because he knows how everything else works in Poser but that. Am I right? That's the one thing he has no inkling of. He would like to know how to use it ;)

I'm like that as well. I want to know WHY it's doing something so that I have a firm understanding. There's just not much more to it than that.

Laurie

The way I see it 3D is a highly collaborative artform.

I totally celebrate that fact... anyway...

...I think BB was saying, in pretty much his first answer back there, that he is creating that means for you to mix colors and effects, is he not?

Like you're asking for in your last post there?

Personally I don't see why it's an issue if that comes as an add-on that BB has programmed, as opposed to an integral feature that the Poser development team have programmed?

slaps head

Wow, this is sooooo a day of no understanding...lol

Laurie

Oh, okay, I get it now. Heh, where Acadia the link lady? She'd have some good links to tutorials on nodes and what they do. :)

I give up.

Ok, I don't  have to know how electricity works to use a lamp. But if I did it might make it easier for me to make a lamp. Get it? LOL

Laurie

Quote - Oh, okay, I get it now. Heh, where Acadia the link lady? She'd have some good links to tutorials on nodes and what they do. :)

taps nose with finger Liz's got it! LOL

:)

Laurie

I'd like to know how Poser and Firefly is built from the ground up, line by line, in (I'd guess) C or C++ code.

But I wouldn't have the time or the means to go through and figure that out.

Does it stop me worrying about it that the code is sealed, closed source, not accessible to me.

I guess maybe it does... a bit...

...however, Blender is open source... LuxRender is open source. Do I pickup one of those, from the source repository now and start working through it.

Nah.... sod that. I want to get on with the stuff I enjoy. Which at present is making pictures.

I'll just let those other guys, who are clearly already good at programming 3D CG apps and ray trace engines get on with their stuff for now... thanks.

A friend of mine quit using Poser after Poser4 because the node system in the material room freaked her out. Still does. She looks at what I do sometimes and just shakes her head. It is daunting and I don't understand half of it. I can only make simple shaders on my own, so I use those released by others (BB mostly, and yeah, I have your shaders Laurie and have used them), because it saves me time and looks better than what I could wrangle up. Heh, leaves more time to fight with Poser's lights.

Some of us (including me) like to tinker more than render ;). Get as much from the program as we can in our way. Our way is the program itself. The way of others is making images. Each a valid endeavor...lol.

For instance, the last few years I make stuff. Hardly ever do a render that isn't a test render...lol. I'll make stuff and just give it away and I hardly EVER use my own stuff. My happiness comes from setting it up so it looks nice to me...then chuck it for the next thing...lol.

Anyone ever stop to think what would happen if BB just up and left? ;). We'd all be SCREWED...lol. It would be nice if we all had a good grasp of the material room, wouldn't it?

Laurie

In terms of the mat room though... it's not like there isn't the guidance and learning material there... and like a lot of others, it's not that I've not made some inroads into it.

I think it's just that, if someone else has already mastered it past the point I know I could (because I know the limits to which I am prepared to apply myself) I don't see a clear point in pursuing that course of learning in a lot of depth... well not if the fruits of that prior mastery is accessible for me to re-use.

But the thing is, I've realised, the node system itself isn't rocket science... or quantum mathematics.

The node system is potentially quite straight forward, I reckon. It's kind of just joining the dots... between elements, many of which are quite intuitive to use, if you don't worry too much about all the numbers in them

It only becomes complicated when you are trying to describe (or at least make an approximate model of) real world material properties using it.

That's not the node system then that's complicated. It's the real world system being modelled. Or, maybe it's not that always, but it's the bridge you need to build, between Firefly's limitations and the real world system being modelled, that is complicated... but anyway...

I guess the beauty of the node system is that it opens up the potential to do this, way past the original remit for Poser or Firefly.

But it does take a certain kind of mind to interpret the real world mathematically in this way, and then transpose that into this system of nodes... sure.

I certainly feel no shame, or sense of personal under-achievement, that I should defer to those, like BB, who can do this task so well... far from it, I am overjoyed there is someone there to push the envelope to my benefit.

I feel my talents, such as they are, are probably more in other areas...

Well, when you've been using the program as long as we have ya find yourself losing interest in what ya started it for in the first place and want to broaden your horizons I guess. I've been using this silly program since 1998. I'm pooped out on making images... It's either focus on another element of the program or move on..heh. I get where you're coming from - I WAS you...lol. I'm just not there anymore and I guess some ppl like me aren't either ;). Can't really speak for Khai, but I guess that may be the case. Or may it's just cause he want's to know every aspect of the software and that's where his satisfaction lies.

Laurie

Apologies.. I did post without reading the rest of the thread... but now that I've gone back and re-read it, I still dont see the distinction between having the 'guts' of materials exposed with materials and shaders on offer from others vs a program where you feed the program an image and 'tell it to make it steel'.   There are still guts hidden in the program that tell it how to make that image look like steel.  Would it be different if poser had just bought a bunch of baggins bills shaders and incorporated them into a dropdown menu in the basic material room that the use could attach an image to.

brief intermission here*

poser team.... Do exactly that!! it would be awesome!***

*** back on track now***

I'm not interested in fighting with you or anyone...  and I am in no way looking down on you for not understanding the material room...  I dont mind playing with it and can grasp some things a little but half of what I do that ends up working I could not really say I understand exactly why

I just really dont get what you are after.. people may have latched onto 'preset' because what you described in your intitial post about what you would do in another program sounds exactly like a built in preset.... to me anyway.

Quote - meatsim before we carry on, please read the rest of the posts. we'll avoid fights.

I'm not sure why ppl have latched onto this preset thing. it's not what I was talking about from the start here. can we please drop it?

Quote - Anyone ever stop to think what would happen if BB just up and left? ;). We'd all be SCREWED...lol. It would be nice if we all had a good grasp of the material room, wouldn't it?

I have a plan B... but that involves selling the house and living in a shack somewhere, on some waste ground... just me and a copy of 3DS Max and VRay.

I'm hoping to continue to use BB's shaders in Firefly, if he'll be good enough to keep contributing them...

...and this shader builder script he's working on sound very cool to me.

Quote - Well, when you've been using the program as long as we have ya find yourself losing interest in what ya started it for in the first place and want to broaden your horizons I guess. I've been using this silly program since 1998. I'm pooped out on making images... It's either focus on another element of the program or move on..heh. I get where you're coming from - I WAS you...lol. I'm just not there anymore and I guess some ppl like me aren't either ;). Can't really speak for Khai, but I guess that may be the case. Or may it's just cause he want's to know every aspect of the software and that's where his satisfaction lies.

Laurie

Totally... I've been playing with Poser precisely since I got Poser 9.

Course, this evening I've been mostly trying to make a Tardis wall in Hexagon / Shade and tinkering with learning how do something in ZBrush... LOL :lol:

Khai, I understand your frustration.
It "was "- read that as "is" my frustration as well.

I started a long time ago, with Poser1 on a 1.44 disk, free with a mag.

I understood ZERO, point ZERO.
So I played, and played, mostly with NO results.

At the time I had a VERY busy job. And free hrs where rare and far between.

EVERYTHING I know now, is by doing it. Trying it.

Do you cook? Or do you go to Mc Donalds?

I never-ever buy.
If I need something?
I will find it, or make it.

I "love freestuff" and am not ashamed to say so.
And If there is no "free"? I make it, or find a way around it.

Yes, it takes time, lots of time and motivation.

You have a problem with the Materail room?
Me too. But I search solutions. Perhaps you have seen the skin shader I posted lately?

There is a HUGE problem in the material room that is NOT in any book.

Wanna know what it is???

You can connect everything into everything, making total garbadge if you do not know what you are doing.

Or? You can be a "Math" guru like BB, and Math your way around in it.

Most of us have to learn the hard way.
Try and error and read in forums what can, and can not be done.

YES; That is the main problem.
Poser has too many options that let you connect anything into anything.
If they make sense or not.

That is one thing that could become more user friendly.
Only allow node combinations that make sense.
It would have saved me months of my free time.

You are absolutely right about that.

But? Hey?
Poser is my hobby, and my Passion.
So I study and learn each and every day.

OMG..I agree with vilters. That asteroid really is coming this December...lol.

I agree that the material room is powerful. It's also a bear. And I make lots and lots of garbage in it...lol.

Laurie

You make my day darling. :-)

cooking? took me about a month to go from boiled egg to full roast dinner for six with all the trimmings. including bread making, cakes, etc. I thank Alton Brown for some of that... the rest was pure experimenting a patience. I enjoy cooking a great deal.

I think part of the material room problem is, if I can put this into words.. I don't have the math. at school, we had sixth maths groups, 1 being top, six being special needs. I was inm 5.

so I have no maths to speak of... kind of. I can do algerbra in my head. the teacher would show us a problem on the board and I'd get into trouble for just writing the answer. he wanted to see the working out. ok it was simple puzzles, but I never did any working out. I just saw the answer. if I worked it out, I'd get it wrong everytime.

so I was marked down and left school with a substandard maths education. now I see BB's and others shaders posted.

if this makes sense, I can read the music. but I can't read the notes. I can follow what the shader does. but, I don't how it does it. just knowing the nodes won't help here I think.. (I'm figuring this out here as I write it. I'm actually putting in public what I've hidden from me as well).. I think I'd have to go back to school and start over. gah someone just shoot me.

Quote - You make my day darling. :-)

Laurie

Quote - so I have no maths to speak of... kind of. I can do algerbra in my head. the teacher would show us a problem on the board and I'd get into trouble for just writing the answer. he wanted to see the working out. ok it was simple puzzles, but I never did any working out. I just saw the answer. if I worked it out, I'd get it wrong everytime.

I don't think "intuiting" one's way around the mat room is out of the question... depending what's being attempted... and once a few principles are grasped... not numbers.. just what nodes connect to what other nodes...

...patterns if you like.

That's really how I work. I see patterns and try and replicate... slightly rearrange them.

That's probably why I start best from complete working examples... i.e. I've managed to splice bits of different BB derived shaders together, or onto other texture maps... and get something working out.

On occassion.

Other times I haven't. LOL :lol:

But, it does seem, the more I look at example BB shaders (for example), presented as visual layout patterns, in the mat room, the more I see the sections of nodes therein as kind of sub patterns I can start to (slightly more succesfully) play around with.. without necessarily understanding all the numbers.

Probably nowhere near as clever as BB's script, but if anyone wants this little utility that I made for myself, feel free to go grab it.

Quote -  

Probably nowhere near as clever as BB's script, but if anyone wants this little utility that I made for myself, feel free to go grab it.

I've written all the sub patterns in tutorial threads. The most important is the BBGlossy thread.

There are actually three very broadly different subjects here.

One is pattern - often just dealt with (even by me) using a color map. But, making procedural patterns (for example, wood grain or scratches in painted wood) is a big deal, not easy at all. Goofing around snapping things together, you can come up with some fascinating patterns. But those are just happy accidents and it's like hitting random notes on a piano. Can you make one intentionally? Like fish scales in my avatar, for example? That's math and it's seriously hard. Most people can't do it, even after I explain how. And it's not physics so you can't even go look up what you need to do.

Two is what I used to call texture before I got into CG - bump or displacement shapes, turning a flat surface into something else. Since this sort of thing is usually based on noise, lots of people can stitch together useful noisy patterns. Little math is needed here, although if you're looking to produce something intentionally, it may be called for.

Three is mediation of light - diffuse reflection, specular reflection, refraction, scatter, dispersion, ... this is where you really really just should rely on presets. Because this is serious math which you can look up, but the problem is it's physics. You have to first know how the world works. Then you have to come up with a way of reproducting that without simulating individual photons - you have to know and take advantage of the statistics of large numbers of photons. Then you have to translate that into a specification that a computer can deal with, which is all math.

This last category is where I really shine and where people get the greatest benefit from just using my shaders. There's not a lot of arguing about creativity here . Glass is glass, metal is metal. You can build it yourself, but you're going to end up with the same equations I already did, and I mostly got them out of physics books. There's not a lot to invent here and call your own.

Nice one, Snarly.

@ Khai, don't be disheartened, mate; my knowledge of the Material Room is very basic and most of it comes from plugging stuff in to see what happens.  BB's stuff is way beyond me and I'm not exactly bad at math(s) or programming, for that matter.

You could perhaps benefit from some tutorials to at least give you the fundamentals and take it from there, assuming you'd be sufficiently interested and/or motivated.  I'm sure there are several knocking around.

Anyhow, if you do give up Poser entirely, fair enough.  Hope you'll stick around here, though; you're a good bloke with a good brain.  And quite often funny. 

Now - who wants to know how to make those 85 nodes? And after you're done, and you've matched my and LuxRenders results, and you have exactly the same shader - what then?

Will you know how to make glass?