The eldar house's tree is a (massive) cherry species, and I simply can't do cherry foliage as mesh leaves, so I'm going to try using transmapped foliage with the foliage set to not participate in IDL calculation.  It remains to be seen whether this will give a good "(detail) bang for your (system resource) buck".  The cherries will be done with soft-edged displacement.

I've uploaded some freebies and will upload more, but sadly my modelling and especially texturing skills are limited.

Speaking of which, would any texture artist wanna team up with me? I've been working on this costume for quite some time. It's almost ready. I just can't make decent transmapped hair textures. I can't really offer anything, except for being mentioned as the co-creator of the freebie in the read me file. Not much of a reward, I know, but sometimes the act of creation is it's own reward.

That's a really sweet looking costume.  I bet you'll have no probs getting a collaborator.  I'd offer my own services but I have enough trouble getting my own stuff done, without taking on any more.

Thanks Sam! So far no one has expressed intrest. :( If any hair texture artist is interested, he/she can just send me a message using the sitemail, or just send me email.  Alternatively, I'll just release this without the hair and mask prop and create a different kind of mask.

Quote - Thanks Sam! So far no one has expressed intrest. :( If any hair texture artist is interested, he/she can just send me a message using the sitemail, or just send me email.  Alternatively, I'll just release this without the hair and mask prop and create a different kind of mask.

It's a nice costume, I just don't have any need or use for it. I'm guessing that's the case with a lot of people.

Problem for self is  - can make models, but textures are hard. Textures made or borrowed come out shiny, or dull. Map to model also hard; patters stretch, don't line up, cetetera.

Have many things that could be freebies (not an expert by any means), if someone else could do the texturing.

EClark1894 :

Yup. Yeah most of my uploads are kinda geeky , nerdy stuff. Most people have no use for them. It's how it goes, I guess.

Yuroven:

Yeah..I sort of learned to model a little bit, but now it's all the other stuff that's difficult; rigging, morphing and especially texturing and creating decent UV maps.

The details are in the Wings forum, here is a link:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2870294&page=1#message_4089578

I've been really undecided about the whole freebie thing just lately. On 1 side, Theres many good things about it, a great way of showcasing work, trying new ideas/genres/techniques, collaborative working, being part of the community sellers can reward customers with extras, etc etc. On the other, like shvrdavid notes it's the attacks from the "minority of morons" which undermines the good. Or those that act like a freebie is a right, not a gift given in the spirit that any gift is given. I've also noticed each time the big boys and girls move the goalposts, this kinda BS can increase. Combine it together and theres a chance someone will say stuff it and just not bother with freebies anymore. Indeed personally, also in part due to career change and recovery, I seriously considered stopping doing any freebies recently. Even perused removing many of them all together. Instead I decided to reduce the frequency of mine. That way both the silent good folks out there and myself, don't lose out all on the benefits. Sure it's not a perfect solution, but I think it's better than totally stopping.

     Beginning to randomize the tiled textures (to reduce obvious repetition, the dreaded "checkerboard" artefact).  These are still just preview screenshots (no bump, displacement, or raytraced effects).

     The little waterfall:  the bridge now overlooks the waterfall. Silo guy -all 926 polys of him- shows the scale.

     Notice the sunken patch in the center.  That is where the Poser terrain would be, so for the Vue pano I don't want any ground or trees to show in that area.

dont forget the bling!!!!!! ;-)

I have been creating some freebies for Rex and Roxie.

http://www.sharecg.com/pf/full_uploads.php?pf_user_name=3dream

     fabricating and installing steel tubing handrails for the steps of my front and back porches.  This Silo mockup has sharp bends, but the real steel was given rounded bends in a hydraulic tubing bender.  sunk 2ft into the ground with a bag of concrete mix.

     That last trip hauling steel must have done in the tires on my '72 El Camino (the last of the musclecar versions).  I pulled all four wheels yesterday, and will get new tires soon.  El Camino is setting on jackstands now.

     Spent a day at my parents' home pulling old barberry bushes out using the winch on my old Jeep.  Wore an Indiana Jones hat to keep my nose from getting sunburned.

But meanwhile, Cameron and Galadriel are each rendering a Vue 360' panorama which I'll use to texture the cylindrical Poser backdrop wall for that elvish house playset.  Cameron is rendering a day backdrop, while Galadriel is rendering a night backdrop.

I thought all of Poserdom slowed down in the summer, including commercial releases and gallery posts...

Plus it's August!  Kids are off school, anyone who'se a parent is going to be very busy indeed.

My own Poser freebie work has been hampered lately by all sorts of other work and studying that I've had to do instead of 3D stuff.  Recently I downloaded a good freebie model of a digital SLR, but it is really designed with so much detail that it could fill an entire large image as the foreground object and still stand up.  It has almost as many polygons as Victoria 4.  This is very much more detail than I need, so I will make another one with a much much lower polygon count for my own use and yes, I'll make it a freebie afterwards.  No promises about when it will be relased though as I have a lot to do at the moment.

     For some reason, the visible BioLumen globes themselves don't appear very "glowy";  I'll fix that before release. 

Definately you guys need to have our appreciation expressed more. I haven't used Poser in over 2 years, but I've been keeping up, reading up, upgrading even buying new stuff and collecting lots of freebies for the time I can get back to using the program.

  I can  tell you that I've been humbled by all the effort and generosity of ppl like you who are willing to share it for no gain whatever.  All the new stuff being made looks great!  seachnasaigh in particular,  your set looks fantastic and complex, I can't believe you are going to give it away for free - I will love it when I'll get my paws on it!

Thank you all for past and present gifts, you are gifts yourself to the Poser community and appreciated more than this little homily can express!

     Thank you, Masha, and you are welcome to it.  I just make stuff that I myself want, and it is a niche genre, but might as well share it for anyone else who might also like it.

     After I finish and release this cottage & enviro playset, I think I'll follow up with some optional furnishings.  Notice the odd-shaped space between the dormer arches...

     Other ideas for furniture are bookcases (elves being learned folk), bunks tucked away along the kneewall junction, a study/writing desk in the sunbay downstairs, and a basic kitchen.

     All of this stuff would be separate so that it can be omitted if not needed (for an exterior render) or if you find some other furnishings which you prefer.

     I realized that I omitted the soleplate trim at the bottom of the dormer walls (and the bottom of the armoire).  Had to add those and export a new OBJ.  I also realized that I need to stagger the animation of the biolumenescent globes to avoid them flickering in unison.  Easily solved.

     While waiting for yet another water animation test to finish, I've been doodling up some furnishings.  The attached screenshot is a rough state concept of a bunk nestled in the rear corner of the second storey.

     There will be some sort of decorative capital trim atop the bookcase, but I haven't formed it yet.

     Click on the small pic to run the proof-of-concept GIF:

. 

OK, now I need to add in the aforementioned forgotten soleplate pediments, re-import the new OBJ, stagger the biolumen textures, then strip out the geometries from the prop files, and then pack it up.

Hi. I'm curious about what you meant by "strained UVs".  

On occasion I get something like a shadow (as seen in accompanying image) along an edge. 

The edge seems to render as though there is a slight angle to it, although there is none.

I have yet to find out what causes it for me, as sometime reloading the model makes it go away. 

I'm curious if there is a term for this (such as "strained UVs"). I have asked in many different places about this phenomenon, but people either don't know or don't understand what I'm talking about.

If there is a term for this I might be able track down the cause easier using the web.

Thanks!

     Yeah, it's irritating when you don't see it until you've got it in Poser and are trying to work up materials.  Oh, there's more than one possibility for that artefact.  Could be that one poly has an opposed normal relative to the others.  Might have a duplicated vertex or edge.  Sometimes another poly occupying the same space sneaks in there.  May have one vertex that's not coplanar with the others.  If the poly is an n-gon (often go unnoticed when beveling) with a concave angle, that will screw it up. 

     Select that darkened poly of the door.  Is the number of vertices and edges what you'd expect?  If not, look closer. Try selecting all vertices for that door, note how many vertices are active, and then call the merge command;  If the vertex count drops, you've probably fixed the problem, but you'll also likely need to re-map that material zone.

     If that doesn't fix it, you might PM me and arrange to send me the troublesome part (door and the {air handling unit?} it adjoins).  Sometimes a second pair of eyes looking at the model afresh will spot something.

Quote - Most of the stuff I make isn't, err, fit for family fare. ;)

 

Not a bad idea, though.

Good to see you around again. Remember you here from the beginning of my involvement in the poser community. If you do adult fare stuff do you offer it somewhere else? Would love to see what you are doing now and as you said can never ge enough of this Poser STUFF!

Quote - The water still isn't satisfactory yet (but I'm working on it).  In the meantime,  here is a test render using IDL emitters teamed up with gentle point lights (my preferred method).

Really nice looking house design. Very fae/elvish.

Freebies have been the primary tools I have used to get into Poser when Version 4 was first released. Never had a lot of cash so the freebies sections here and elsewhere were a main staple for me to glut on. I still have ALL that cool stuff I downloaded from the beginning and use it as needed. Yeah the new stuff is so much better and more realistic but sometimes...hell...ALWAYS...beggars can't be choosy!

If I could wrap my brain around apps that one uses to create content I would have made and offered my own. But I can't despite so many attempts. I use Poser 7 now and like Poser 4 before it I have not even touched the more complex stuff like cloth room hair room creating morph targets etc.

I have despite my lack of brilliance in the app, managed to get some nice work rendered thanks to the brilliant content creators who offer freebies and quality products in the stores for us dunderheads in the community.

BIG Thanks to ALL OF YOU!

Thanks, Shante.  ^^

Water is working well now.  Need to make modeling/mapping/texturing corrections to the biolumenescent lamps.  Whilst waiting for Valkyrie to finish generating animated procedurals, I got some more work done on the optional furniture.

     Bookcase (loaded) 6,539 polys.  Accessorized scribe desk/chair, 6,980 polys.

Hi seachnasaigh. In this case I was not trying to fix the particular model, but was using the image as an example. The model is/was already packed up when I noticed it... the door in question is technically in an area that is not that important or noticeable... one of six duplicate "stations". I decided to just move on and not invest more time fixing it... This particular model was an experiment using a new plug-in for the modeling program... to say the least the whole experiment was a pain... it was meant to save time, but in the end it did not... basically I spent more time on the model then I ever intended.

The weird poly has nothing to do with the plugin though. As a matter of fact, last night while I was making a promo image for another model when I noticed a similar artifact in a piece of clothing... and a car and an oil barrel. I started looking at random models I have in my runtime and noticed quite a few... both in paid for (but in that case- older) and free models... with all of these they were harder to notice because the polys in question were tiny... in real life probably an inch or less. In my case these are much more noticeable, because my models are mostly structures, so the faults can be many feet across.

I'm guessing that there are probably a bunch of causes for these artifacts or defects.

The weird thing is I can find no official term for them... every now and then I get one of these and decide to find out what causes them... but without a term for it, it is hard to define the search... and if I ask at a forum I end having to describe the whole thing again each time... as opposed to just saying "I have a Trimangulated polygon" and folks know what that is.

I'm actually going to use "Trimangulated" if there turns out to be no official term, since it always seems to occur with triangulated polys.

One question... when you said use the merge command, you do not mean in Poser or the modeller? I never noticed a merge command in Poser. I assumed you were referring to something in the group editing tool, but I could not find anything like it.

Anyway thank you for the help and have a great day!

     Yes, many older models, especially those made for P4/PP (Poser 4 Pro Pack) have this sort of problem.  With P4 models, it's usually a mesh with some normals pointing out, and some pointing in.  P4 paid no attention to it, but with the release of P5, they showed up.

     If the entire polygon is evenly shadowed, look for a flipped normal, or a duplicate polygon sharing the same space.

     If the poly has shadow stronger toward one vertex or edge, then look for an extra vertex in the poly which is out of plane with the others, or perhaps what looks like a straight edge is actually interrupted by a vertex, making it two sidea of the poly.  Poser will render a strictly convex n-gon without problem, but if any angle is concave or even precisely 180' (i.e., two edges in a straight line), you'll see artefact.

     Merge is a modeler command;  If you have duplicated vertices, it will merge any two (or more) vertices which are sharing space.

     The blue poly looks like a quad but actually has six vertices, and the two vertical sides each have two end-to-end edges in a straight line.  Thus it is a hexagon which is not strictly convex.  It is an ebil, tricksie polygon, and Poser hates it forever.

     The ruddy polygon on top looks like a triangle, but has a fourth vertex, displaced upward out of the plane.  This is a quad which is %@$#'ed up like a soup sandwich.  Guaranteed render artefact.  Also, notice at the corner of the box, there are two vertices, and they are not connected (I've pulled one up a bit to make their separation apparent).

     Meanwhile, I got a bunk made, which makes use of another of those odd kneewall spaces on the second storey.  This is a test render, but the dyn sim for the blanket kept failing, so the blanket is laying on the floor.  Also, the wine bottle glass is unexpectedly dark.  Hmmm.

     Got the blanket fixed;  I had incurred mesh nastiness when I tesselated it.  :ohmy:

     Here is the new water stream;  I like it better.  Click the thumb to run the GIF (1.2MB, so it might take a while to load).

.