Hi, after lot of work for a long time I think this free figure is nearing completion, left some test and some little things.

The complete figure has around 36000 polys, it use "classic" rigging.

Opinions, questions  and suggestions are great as always.

Hope it would be available soon, meanwhile some renders.

This time, fat and thin morphs.

Another one, strong and "no muscular" morphs.

And the latest for now, Old and young morphs and textures.

Looking good!

What's the score on facial expressions?

I concur...great work!

Wow - this looks great!

Fantastic! Great News!! Thank you in advance for your hard work :-)

Looking good Adh3d :-)

Out of interest, how does he do in terms of "tall" and "short" morphing / scaling?

Cheers

Thank you for the comments.

About the expressions, this is the list of morphs, including the expressions.

I'll make some renders of each one and put then here.

All morphs dials are located in the "body" part, so you can acces any morph from one body part.

 About tall and short, I'll make a comparison with M4 ...

What support structures are there in terms of clothing? Is it going to get WW and MC support? Also is this figure Wmapped?

Looks great. You say "classic rigging" I would prefer a weight mapped figure, but might go for this anyway.

Cool? may we see a wireframe image, Preferably of the smooth shaded or hidden line variety?

It is classic rigging, I made it that way so you can use the figure in almost every Poser and Dazs version. In a future I think I am going to make a WM rigging version too.

Of course I am going to make clothes for this figure, in fact, I am making right now, from uniforms, period clothes, casual... Hope more creators make clothes for him too.

About Wardrove Wizard support, will see, this one depends not only on my.

When you say "MC", waht tool you mean, thanks.

A Poser  screen capture of the figure wireframe

I know you must have worked & worked at this.
You have done a nice job.
Congrats for your achievements.

Without making any firm promise, I would be interested to see the figure with a view to developing Wardrobe Wizard support.

I saw some of you prototype work over at your dA gallery.  I am very glad for you that you are nearing the end of this creation. Good going.

Looks good. Looking forward to seeing the historical clothing for him too. I love your historical stuff! :)

Thank you again for the comments.

Philc, I sent you an email from your contact page at your site today. Tell me what  you need and I'll send you, obj, cr2...

This looks like a very interesting figure, and moreover, it is male!

Great looking figure.  Congradulations and thank you making a male.

Thank you.

As I said, the expressions renders. All values in 1.

Of course the expressions names are set by reference, because some expressions can be

used for  different expressions of its name.

Surely interesting! Great work!

Excellent! The expressions and mesh view images have me very much looking forward to this.

Now the render of the phonemes and the morph with the tongue out

Here a render of two figures rendered one beside the other, you can see some "scale poses" applied to them, arms longer, legs longer, abdomen longer, legs shorter.

There are no morphs in this render.

Thats a very nice looking figure.  How heavily does his rigging make use of JCMs?

I like what I'm seeing a great deal. Thanks for sharing this, and looking forward to having a new guy on the block. Hopefully Phil C will come through with Wardrobe Wizard support.

Watching. :)

Very promising figure!

Would love to work with him!

Could you show us the UVS templates

Quote - Thats a very nice looking figure.  How heavily does his rigging make use of JCMs?

There is not  JCM in this figure.

About the templates,  a reduced image of thetwo main templates body and head , there are other templates for the eyes,teeth...

Body template looks cool!

Face tamplate doesn't look completelly symmetric

Also the big lip thing IMHO creates a visible seam on the face and a very specific lip border that in female textures may be needed but for males it is not neseccary...

I had doubts make the lip this way or part of the face, at the end, I make it this way because it can be a bigger template, but it was a  hard decision

Either way it is still an easy template to work with

I'm sure there are other people that don't have a problem with this setup it is all about tastes and workflow

I just believe the simplest the better anyway, why always have a hard time texturing the lip seams instead of making a bigger separate texture only in case this is needed...

Also if the back of the head was at the body you could have even more details for the face, apollo has this setup and with quite smaller files you get great detail

I'm just saying my opinion that applies to any figure texture setup and you know what they say about opinions, so please ingnore me :biggnin:

I like the Apollo maps, they are easy to texture and no problems with texture stretching.

My preference is the map set-up from the V3 and M3 series or the G2 series maps. As for the V4 and M4 maps I really dislike them.

Just my poor old opinion.

I always adapt to what ever mapping modelers create. :)

Makes sense, one map for the body, one map for the face. Mapping looks good. 

With separate lips it is hard to make a natural transition between lip surface and face skin. Whether the advantage of larger scale weighs more depends on the shader used and personal preference. 

It would be 0possible I think to use an altGeom for the face, just the same geometry, same number of vertices, so same morphs, but different UV mapping. 

Anyway: nice work. 

Attached Link: asymmetrical UVS approach plus alternative geometry experiment

**
**but not for the lips but for the whole face

the concept would be that in the alternative head the face map would be included on the body, this way the same figure could use either just one texture for everything or 2 different textures for higher face texture resolution

If it concerns the whole body maybe just make it a separate character, similar to say Antonia with her 3 alternative mappings (2 native and DPHoadley's V3 mapping). 

Provided the rest of the mapping does not change, a head texture could contain both the included and the separate lip textures.

I have no problem in make an alternative figure with an uv map as the map you are talking about, the scalp in the body map and the face in another one with the lips "glued" to the face, I'll have to see some aspects and if there is no problem, I can make it.

I was initially not going to comment on the figure, as it is way too hi poly for my use.
Also, some area's have lots of poly's an others have few.

Some dense area's I can find a reason, others I can not at all.

An even poly distribution is essential to any mesh.

Unsubdevided, I could have used it.

On the map?
Symmetry problems are to be avoided at all cost.
And Lips AND Ears have to be in the face.

Preferably, a single texture map for the whole figure.
Poser handles 8192x8192 pixel textures with ease, so you have lots and lots of room to put it all on one single texture map.

A mesh and texture have to be as content creator and as end user friendly as possible.
Neither of them are. 
Sorry, mate, you did a fine job, but "as is"?

It looks good, but as is, I doubt the figure will have a long life.

Best of luck.
Tony

Well, thanks for your opinon, In fact my horse figure, sold here, have the head and the body in the same texture, but I think, although Poser can handle 8000x8000 textures( you have to have a lot of  ram to handle those textures right, you get  more detail if the head is in other map with a smaller texture size.

About the poly distribution, where do you thing there are a lot of polys ? , because I think I use the polys needed in every zone, not only for the good looking of the mesh in Poser, but for it renders ok without artifacts.

Note that although I am not making a low poly figure, I tried to save as much poly as I could.

You said:"A mesh and texture have to be as content creator and as end user friendly as possible.Neither of them are. "

 About that, I think this is a unsolvable problem, because I think there will be so maps as creators , I tried to make the uv map comfortable for the creators,I am a content creator, there are many options when you uv map an humanoid, and there are many good ways to do it, I think the uv map I choose, is a easy map to work with and it is inside the 3d humanoid standars.

About the life of the figure, well, we all now the Poser world ,a very difficult world for non Daz3d figures, but there is a sure thing, I am going to support it with clothes, textures... and I hope some creators do the same, but in this point, I cannot do anything.

there is no need for alternative setup for the whole body

an alternative head obj could use the same setup as the the seperate face template but scaled down to nest on the empty body uv space

editing the textures shouldn't be a problem since if someone makes the seperate face texture only has to scale it down to have at the same time a low and a high resolution face texture option

the one map texture should look like that and all the other details on the blue space

A completely different UVS setup would be very confusing (like for antonia) and would mess users.

more options is not always an advantage

OK, thank you for the explanation sir.

PS for textures: 8000-8000 is not efficient

Use :
512x512
1024x1024
2048x2048
4096x4096
8192x8192

With Posers texture caching (selectable in General preferences, Render tab) and with the texture set to quality or crips, Ram consumption stays pretty low as Poser only loads what is required to render the buckets is working on.

I worked a lot with 8192x8192 single map textures.
And at render time, Poser only has to load and read one map.

FYI; the texture layout for the PoserPro figures is a very good example.

Ok pitklad, I did not understand well, I see waht you mean now and , although it is a great option, I said before I use that way in my horse figure, I think I am going to leave the head as a separated texture. Anyway, thank you for your suggestion, It is always great to read suggestions for other artists.

About the Ram use, of course depends of systems, but I can say you that in a "normal user " system, render with a 8192x8192 texture is difficult, and  if we talk about content creators and creating new textures, with a 8192x8192 base, some people can have problems working with a testure as gig as that. Not all content creators have super machines I Think.

BLUE is uneven poly distribution.
Or too big poly size variations. From very large to very small very soon...

RED is too many poly's for the particular area.

I agree, outsides like the outside al an elbow need an extra poly line more then the inside of an elbow.
Same for a kneebend.
Outsides strech when bending, insides shrink when bending.

But only area's that are in these bending area's need an extra poly line.

On the chest between the breasts: or the navel, or the ears? That is common.
Most figures meshes turn BLACK from poly's when looked at from a distance.
When you see that, it's time for a clean up.

Area's that turn BLACK when you look at a mesh from a distance need a clean-up.
Except where those poly's are required, like on the face, or nipples.

Just my humble opinion.

Even Poly distribution is THE single most difficult part of building a figure.
Thanks for reading.

While a big 8192x8192 texture has its quality advantages, I agree with you that a single 4096x4096 texture is the most user friendly.

(4000x4000) is a DS limitaion I "think".

Poser likes 4096x4096.

The best layouts are ==>  Att !!!!!  Very personal opinion

The PoserPro figures layout. ==> Best ever.

Alyson = close second as all is on 2 texture maps.

More then 2 is , well, one main of the reasons I never use a "V" figure.

Some zones you said there are many polys is because in these zones there  are something "modelled", for example in the back part of the knees, the zone you said, has a wrinkle modeled and some muscles zones are modeled too. you cannot use less polys to model in those zones, it is impossible, at least for me.

Other thing is to model a low poly figure and make all those zones with displacements maps, but I said again, this is not a low poly figure.

The zone between chest you said, there is only two "lines" of polys in each side to arrive to  the center, if I use less polys, the geometry shape would be wrong.

The zones marked in blue, well, why to use more polys , I don't need them in the modelling process, and for using in Poser, these zones bend right and render right, so ...

you said :"..big poly size variations. From very large to very small very soon...", this is because the "big" poly size are in zones where ther is no wrinkles or geometry changes, and where you see more polys is the change between, for example, the back to the ass, and you need more polys there to model it right, sure you know that.

The figure has 36000 polys and belive me when I said  I try to use as less poly I can to get what I want to get and for it gives no problem when you render it in Poser.

Anyway I don't understand well where you want to arrive with this,talking in an amicably way.

Actually I made my points just because the theme is a new figure

Those were made just for the talk, sorry if I've gone out of theme

I wouldn't dare to suggest you to change something to a project that is so close to completion

Let's say I wanted to share some ideas that maybe some other creator can use

Again I will congratulate you for your hard work on this figure, I wish the best and If possible I'll try to make one thing or two for the guy! :biggrin:

Most put a checker board on there mesh to test it.

example
http://www.pixologic.com/zbrush/features/UV-Master/

zBrush has
512x512 ,1024x1024 ,2048x2048 ,4096x4096

zBrush does not have
8192x8192

Pitklad, It is great you tell your opinion and suggestions about this figure, this is why I open this thread. Thank you.

A render of the asian and african tone and morphs

Impressive looking figure.