Hi folks,

Ok, so some of you will know that I've been working on the modelling side of an incredibly over-ambitious animation project for years and still have an awful lot to do. Well, I'm in need of some real-life characters making to a very high standard for V4 and M4. I need them to really look like the real deal, which means hair too (preferably transmapped, unless the creator can get all of thehair room settings working right, as I'm terrible with the hair room...), along with a body that is proportionate.

One of these characters will be myself (vain, I know, but if I'm using a voice changer and my talent for accents to perform the voice acting for all the characters, I at least want to voice myself!). I am happy to produce all the images needed to create the character of myself and will provide images of the others as best I can (one is my dear Mum, who has sadly passed away, but I can provide enough information for her, I think).

I can't stress quality enough here, it really is paramount that these characters are believable... I want to take promo renders that look freakily accurate and will be working hard to emulate the facial expressions and bodily movements of the real people in the animation.

If this interests you, please reply here and I'll PM you with my email so we can talk further.

As far as payment is concerned, this will have to be discussed privately and I'd need to know what kind of work would be involved and what you would expect of me.

Please be aware that I am a detail nut. If it's not right, with all due respect, it's not right. ;)

I'm prepared to pay for this, so only folks with a provable talent in character creation (preferably real life characters too) should apply, please. This is very important to me.

Thank you folks,

Glen.

Too busy with my personal projects to do custom work, but you might want to check my store at RuntimeDNA (my vendor name is Blackthorn). I specialize in realistic ethnic faces. I have several Native American sets, a Caucasian (viz., from the Caucasus--Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) set, and a set based on 20s icons. I'm working now on a set based on the Middle East. Sets based on India and North Africa will follow. Could be useful to you.

Hi,

Thank you for the info, however, I already have a lot of 'generic' characters and am now looking for specific, real life characters to be made. Unless you have one that looks an absolute spitting image of my Mother, my friend and me, for example, they wouldn't be of any use to me at the moment. ;)

Glen.

That would be a very unlikely coincidence. ;)

"I can't stress quality enough here, it really is paramount that these characters are believable...  "

Hi not to be a "wet blanket"
here but from your description it sounds like you would need the services of $$$Weta Digital®.. or $$Industrial Light& Magic®$$$

Seriously.

Poser/Daz is great for of Alot of things, but it sounds like this project might be a wee bit too ambitious  to even attempt with poser/Daz figures.

If you are the person I responded to in the other thread I already know you are not going to try and render this project in poser.

But frankly rendering the finals is the least of your potential problems right now.

"promo renders that look freakily accurate and will be working hard to emulate the facial expressions and bodily movements of the real people in the animation."

well poser/Daz cant really do this without
custom facial rigging with simulated under skin muscle controls
so if indeed you are planning to manually animate the characters in poser then you are in for much pain& suffering.

if you plan to use canned Mocap from outside sources you are in for a different kind of frustration.

If you plan to have these "realistic" & "convincing" figures created for poser and then send them to some other high end program via one of the many  a plugin/hosting options( FBX ,Collada Blah blah),

Be prepared to lose some portion of the poser functionality you paid to build into the figure in the first place( such as any poser native dynamics or skin shaders).
 
Or somehow add more controls essentialy re-rigging the characters in whatever high end app you plan to use.

As an animator myself I advise you this:

If you have not already done so ,establish a viable end to end workflow with, proof of concept, animation& lighting renders,using your existing M4/V4 figures
these renders should include lipsynch as well as body motion& hair motion test's
within the environments you plan on using.

Hi,

Thanks for the info. I've seen many characters for Poser which have been based on real life people and some of them look extremely good, it's this level of realism I'm looking for (the reason I'm stressing detail and quality so much is because I don't want to end up being expected to pay a load of money for characters that, frankly, look nothing like who they're supposed to be. I've commissioned work for this project before and been stung as I've paid up front and been left with crap that literally doesn't work at all, so I'm being terribly cautious now.

With regards to rendering, Poser just isn't going to cut it. Around 24hrs to render one frame is sickeningly slow, I've no idea how anyone animates in this thing. I did a load of calculations and estimated that rendering alone would take neary two hundred years... suffice to say I don't have enough life left, lol! I'm not sure what software to use for rendering, but of course, I need it to be able to do everything I'm looking to do with it. I'm thinking Cryengine is probably a good bet, but I'm yet to look at some other decent engines. Skin shaders are important, but I'll have to see what I can do. I'm going to need to keep the morphs for characters and clothing, as well as rigging, that's the most important thing.

Due to the fact that I've been working on this project for three years and, due to endless computer and software issues, haven't even gotten myself a quarter of the way through modelling everything yet, I'm not sure that choosing all the software is a good idea. Let's say it takes me another four years to be at the rendering stage... maybe Poser will be better with rendering times by then? Perhaps the other software I choose will have changed dramatically, forcing me to redo everything? I'd rather get on with things my own way than force myself to a railroad. I've always been the same and my projects become uniquely my own as a result. Nobody can work with me on projects because nobody can comprehend my methods, but they work for me, lol!

I'm grateful for the advise, thank you very much. We'll just have to see where we go.

Glen.

You could set up a small render farm. You'll probably need to do that anyway regardless of what render engine you use. You can also buy subscriptions to render farms online. But you have to be cautious of online farms, as it is against the EULA for some content, so you'd have to set up your own in that case.

I didn't know I could do it online, thanks! Well, the only content that's likely to be banned is branding, so I'll take a look. :)

V4M4 are very high polycount meshes that's only used in Poser
,there not for game engines.
game engines use low polycount meshes.

the sony 4 games cost a lot to make.
even unrealistic shrek cost a lot to make.
there all made in studios with a CGI Crew of very skilled Artist with the finest software.
Where talking a lot of $$$

Poser is good for rendering cool unrealistic stills of store bolt content.
Can a single person make a realistic CGI Video ? not in Poser with V4M4.

I would never try this but if i did.
I'd get max or maya,mudbox,body and facial mocap/kinects

A realtime render engine that might render good enough for ya
http://render.otoy.com/

if ya can't model ya own characters I wouldn't use V4M4 with there very high polycount.
i'd use Roxie,Rex or V5,M5 or V6,M6.& just import them in to max or maya

One person doing a full length animated film isn't a very realistic goal, but it's possible if you're dedicated enough. You'd be better off building a team of artists whose work you are familiar with, but that could run into some pretty hefty cash unless you approach people who are looking for exposure for their work. There are forums online where you can ask for contributors that will do work for credit, but you can't always be too picky with them unless you're willing to pay.

M4 and V4 can be animated with style if the right talent is handling it. There are some pretty decent animations out there on youtube and other sites that demonstrate it, but none much longer than about 10 to 20 minutes or so, and even at that it takes many months and a lot of dedication to pull off a quality animation without the help of mocap and a more complicated rig than what the average Poser figure (M4/V4, etc) provides. These rigs can be built in Poser, but they're easier to build in Maya or another more appropriate, professional app. A game engine wouldn't be a wise choice, as RorrKonn pointed out, unless you really know the game engine you're using. You could use the engine for cityscapes and such, and Poser for animating the characters with their stock rigs (or a custom rig if you're willing to take on and learn that challenge) then composite it all together.

The online render farms may be a no-go for using DAZ models tho. That's the point I was trying to make earlier. You will need to read their EULA and find out, or ask them directly for clarification. And unless you're having all your content custom built (clothing, scenery, etc), you'll need to check the EULAs of each of those items as well, or check with the individual vendors who own them, to see what their EULAs say about online rendering with their content. Some are fine with it, others won't allow it. If you build your own farm then you won't have to worry about that. It's the uploading of content to a render farm that many content artists disagree with. You can buy relatively inexpensive servers off e-bay and other sites to build your own farm and network them all together. One member here who could give you some pointers on that is SeachNasaigh. 

And in regards to having custom face sculpts done, you will likely need to get a model release from each of the people you're wanting to have likenesses made of. Many artists won't touch it without such a model release. This comes up pretty often here, where people want a custom morph of someone - usually a female for V4 - and the same thing is stated. You and the artist both are risking legal trouble if you use someone's likeness without their permission. Just because there are some celebrity likenesses in the various marketplaces and freepositories doesn't make it legal. 

Not trying to discourage you, just giving you a heads-up as to things you need to consider.

Thanks guys.

Getting model releases isn't a problem in all but one case; as I said in my first post, one is my late Mum... she won't be signing anything.

I think I'll give online render farms a miss then. It's still very early for me to be thinking about that. As good as the advice is, it'll have to wait 'til later in the project.

As for actually animating figures, I've seen M4 and V4 animated very well and terribly badly in just about equal amounts. I'm not entirely sure what method I'll use for animation, though I was considering looking further into Kinect.

As previously stated, Poser is NOT the software I envisage I'll be using to render. Too slow. Period. If SM release a version closer to render time that renders a L-O-T faster, I may consider it.

With regards to lifelike characters being possible in Poser, I know full well they are possible, I've seen plenty of real-life people recreated for M4 and V4 and, though some don't look too great, most are good enough and some are freakily accurate. I'm afraid I simply refuse to accept the "You're asking too much from Poser to make realistic character" stance, it's just not true.

This whole project is pretty much the only thing I do with my life, and have been for three years. I've created the environment from scratch, I've created buildings and a, currently, small cast of characters for the main cast using V4 and M4. I'm doing everything myself that I can do, however, having never attempted scratch character creation before, I'm in need of help with this aspect, which I am willing to pay for.

I suppose one could imagine the frustration I feel when I've put all this effort into a project which is, quite literally, the only thing I really live for at the moment, only to have stumbling blocks at every single metre, from software licensing issues, glitches, hard drive failures, computers dying right the way up to companies like Lenovo being completely and utterly incapable of providing any kind of service to me after spending a fortune on a brand new PC and having performance problems indicative of a fried GPU, then having to wait months on end to get my new build PC here, after it was supposed to take a few weeks.

I've shed blood through this and all I'm asking is for someone to make me some Poser characters and a set of morphing overalls for M4/V4 (different topic), yet I'm constantly faced with "Can't!". Funny how I'm the one who's always being told I'm defeatist!

You CAN, Poser community!

I think I'll start messaging character creators personally. I've seen many fantastic looking characters.

The project, as a whole, might well be overly ambitious, I've even said that myself, but whether or not I actually complete it is something that, ultimately, only I can control. I know it's a ton of work, which is why I don't want to sit for months trying to create a character that I can pay someone else to create for me.

I don't need to pay a special effects company to make me three or four characters from scratch, that's just not right. Now, I know, for an absolute fact, that the individuals capable of this work are in this community. I also know that they accept money as payment for said work. All I'm asking is for them to raise a hand.

Thanks

Glen.

This is the kind of quality I'm looking for, in so far as being accurate to the real-life likeness goes.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=94005&AID=666

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=85265&AID=666

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=92687&AID=666

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=89554&AID=666

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=99434&AID=666

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=100829&AID=666

http://render.otoy.com/ is a Poser,DAZ a lot of app plugs & a stand alone real time render engine.

there's a vender/venders here that made a lot of movie star faces like Angelina Jolie.
looked just like them.they done real good.
I can't think of the venders names but I'm sure other here can.

some are better then others at making a real cgi human.

if ya can't get a V4 vender.

before ya contrat a Artist ya don't know ask for a portfolio.
ask around about there reputation.
even if they have a good rep I wouldn't pay any more then 1/2 up front.
if there unknown then I dout they could do it anyways
but I wouldn't pay untill it's completed.

if ya can't get a V4M4 Poser vender to make ya morphs.
then I dout there's any one else that could or would.

pro14 has the morph brush
there modeling in the .jpg but it same concept as morphing.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=166503&d=1326138265

I know 3 years of fighting seems long but there's some that have decades of cgi war stories.ya got to fight for what ya want.never surender.

ya might want to learn to make ya own PC's and learn what all the cgi softwares can do.