That head face_off - the one you posted a pic of - I have a low res version of that which renders about the same. It comes down to the quality of the underlying forms. If the underlying forms are good then you can get a great render out of the mesh. Doubly so if you are using subdivision alongside high quality maps (high quality maps does not always mean high res by the way).

Hi Teyon.  The render quality of that head model with and without the normal map is huge - so the normal map makes a big difference and that case.  The head at http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2396248&user_id=280495 is 1million polys, and doesn't have the normal map - so it needs all those extras polys.

My general workflow is the pose the figure, merge all the skin materials into one with a python script (requires joining the separate skin texturemaps into one too), export to ZBrush, subd (usually twice), import back to Poser, then use GoZ to push and pull the mesh (now a prop rather than figure).  The biggest issue is that if I want to change the pose, I can't move the base mesh, because then I loose all the work on the subd prop.  Often subd'ing twice is not enough to get the look I'm after.  Say a person leaning to one side and twisting will have skin folds on the lean side, and if the polygons are not going in the same direction as the folds, you need a lot of subd'ing to get the right look.  On the standard Poser models, areas such as ribs, shoulders, neck, knees, etc have no where near the number of polys needed to accurately model the lumps and bumps of a real person.  And those same models split the skin into 3 or 4 zones, which means you cannot use ZB to generate displacement maps (unless you merge all the zones).

IMO, the perfect Poser figure would have ONE material zone for skin, and have way more polys.  Then we could use GoZ to push the model around without subd'ing and reloading as a prop.  Or, ZB could be used to generate a displacement maps from the posed figure.  The way it is at the moment it's a substantial technical exersize to do either of these things.

Paul

Creator of PoserPhysics
Creator of OctaneRender for Poser
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