I created a dryad character that uses v4 rigging. It shares no mesh with V4 at all. It was originally designed to conform to V4, but can be used as a standalone product. I've contacted Daz3D to see if I can use the V4 rigging to use in my character to sell. When I first started this, I emailed them about it, and they said I could if I sold through them. So nearly two years later, I get the Dryad all polished up, work out the kinks and beta tested. I email them again, but this time they want me to redo it for Genesis 2 figure (which I don't use, or even have) and to improve the texture (which was based on photos)

I have neither the time or inclination to recreate it for Genesis 2, and I asked if they would give me permission to sell this character in other outlets.

They have not responded, despite several attempts at emailing them.

Someone suggested they may be using the idea of this character to recreate for their own use. 

I know a lot of clothing items sold here and elsewhere use the V4 rigging and can be sold freely. My figure uses most, but not all of the V4 rigging. (no eyes, upper jaw or tongue bones for example)

My question is this: 

How much rigging is needed to then be considered infringing on their product?

Yes I know I can rig it myself, but I have no skill or patience for such an endeavor.

Does your product require the buyer to actually own V4 to use it or does the product have it's own obj file that happens to use V4's rigging? 

You're gonna need Daz' permission to use V4's rigging. It doesn't surprise me that they want this for Genny2 now - they don't really support V4 anymore.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to get back to you either ;).

And, just as you can't use their work and ideas for your own products without permission, they can't use yours either. So if they used your idea, I'd have something to say about it - thru an attorney ;).

Laurie

Ideas cannot be copy protected!

To the OP, if you really want this to be sold then update it for G2F.  Work WITH Daz instead of working against them.  And if you sell it through DAZ, you will get their help durning the QA process too.  No one knows the Genesis figures like they do.

** icprncss2: **"Does your product require the buyer to actually own V4 to use it or does the product have it's own obj file that happens to use V4's rigging?"  

Actually, yes the buyer would need to own V4 if they want to have the leafy texture. Its the only way for the figure to have emotions. eyes, mouth, and the included V4 leafy texture helps define her shape.

But it (the Dryad) could be used on its own as a monster, or silent creature, or whatever, as it takes any V4 Pose.

Daffy34, Mattymanx;

You're right. I should work with Daz3D, its just the way they responded to my submission after working on it for the better part of two years that really chapped my a$$. I'll email them again.

The issue is the Dryad figure that uses V4's rig.  Remove that from the texture package and I really don't see any reason you couldn't sell it the same as any other texture/character package.

DAZ won't allow you to use even a part of the V4 rig on what can only be considered an original rig.  DAZ went so far as to trademark it's Triax weight map rigging for DS4 and Genesis.  I don't have to deal much with boys and girls in Legal but from what I understand of trademarking, it's no small chunk of change. 

Ask them for help and they will help you.  They will work with you to help you make money through them so dont worry about or entertain the thought of them stealing from you.

Ideas can't be copyrighted. Maybe true, but really dirty and shitty if one does steal another's idea ;). Know what I mean? LOL

Laurie

It happens all the time.  How many items here at Rendo or at RDNA or DAZ are based on movies or comic?  A ton!  And no one raises a stink over it.

"There is nothing new under the sun"  -  as artists we are all influenced by other peoples work.

If anyone is really concerned about being copied BEFORE they release something then the best thing for them to do is stay quiet about it.

 The basics are simple.

Only sell or distribute what you make.
Never sell or distribute what you did not make yourself.

No one raises a stink over it probably because the original creator hasn't seen it LOL. I for one would never base anything I make off of a movie or a comic ;). Ever hear of Disney? They really hate it when someone uses their intellectual property (or copies it). I don't consider movies, comics, tv shows, video games, etc fair game for copying. I don't like copying ANYONE'S idea if I can help it.

FWIW, the stuff at Rendo or Daz that's copied something from a movie or whatever should have had permission. I mean, it's better to cover one's own ass, isn't it?

Laurie

Two years is a very long development cycle.

Like all tech, things go out of date pretty quick. Suggestions made 2 years ago will likely have little relevance now.

Even two years ago, V4 sales were slowing down and genesis sales are climbing. Now with G2 figures, the sales on G2 stuff is 1000 times better than sales on V4 stuff. So to remain viable in the marketplace, you really have to keep up with the trends.

 Completely correct. Keep u with trends.
The new trends for Poser being Dusk and Down, Rex and Roxie, and M4/V4.

"Completely correct. Keep u with trends.
The new trends for Poser being Dusk and Down, Rex and Roxie, and M4/V4."

However if this person intends to sell at DAZ, then the poser trends are really not going to be too helpful. (though I find it funny that you list M4/V4 under "NEW" trends LOL)

.

I would get the advice of your own legal counsel, however, to be honest, either create your own new rig for the figure or work with DAZ. You're just simply not going to make enough money to defend yourself against any copyright infringement lawsuit DAZ might decide to throw your way, justified or not.

Use a stripped v4 donor rig, same as any v4 specific conformer on mp. Used to be a blank v4 floating around out there for such a purpose (I have it). Not seeing the problem...

Ideas can't be copyrighted. Maybe true, but really dirty and shitty if one does steal another's idea ;). Know what I mean? LOL

Laurie

Ideas can't be copyrighted. So if you send your wonderful script to a studio and they decline to use it, but two years later, they've made movie with precisely the same plot and characters (even names), but none of your text is reproduced, you're completely out of luck. Titles can't be copyrighted. Names can't be copyrighted. Storylines can't be copyrighted. Designs (such as clothing designs) can't be copyrighted. However, all of these things can be trademarked. And designs, if they have some functional purpose (such as a new type of zipper or button or pocket) can be patented. 

The reason companies have been so rigorous about protecting their IP, even from fan art and fiction, is that, unlike copyright, which you can choose to defend against or simply ignore infringements, trademarks are required by law to be defended or you risking losing your trademark. Many companies, I'm sure, would love to permit fans to do what they want with these trademarked stories and characters, but in the past, they have been unable to. Today, you see that many companies are much more lenient about fan art/fiction than they ever were in the past, and I expect that there have been some subtle changes in interpretation of trademark law that permit a less rigorous defense against infringement. But as I'm not a lawyer and haven't researched the topic thoroughly, I can't tell you what those changes might be.

However, regardless of how the law is currently interpreted, this does not stop companies with a dedicated legal department from initiating a lawsuit in the hopes of getting 1. a judgement in their favor with a different interpretation 2. intimidating another company or artist by the mere threat of a lawsuit 3. winning a suit simply by outspending the defendant.

So, unless you're a lawyer who specializes in IP law or have one in your family who just loves doing pro bono work, OR you have $10,000 to $250,000 sitting around that you have no other plans to use, it's probably not a good idea to test the waters. Poser content creators can probably fly under the radar from most big entertainment companies, but they'll never go unnoticed if they infringe on the IP of a company that serves the exact same market.

And, yes, I agree that it's dirty and unethical to steal another's idea. On the other hand, a great many ideas are expressed or described, but never used. It'd be a shame if just coming up with an idea meant it couldn't be used by anyone else. If you've ever sat around with a group of artists and drank a few beers -- and I'm sure you've done something like that many, many times -- you know how easy it is to come up with ideas. It's putting them into a usable form that takes effort and skill.

Actually, most screenwriters register their screenplays with the Writers Guild of America. I've done two or three of them myself. So if a movie company does steal your idea, or even bits and pieces, it's relatively easy to prove. And many legitimate screenwriting contests require that your screenplay be registered before they will accept it.

I'm not disagreeing with your point, just showing off my knowledge of screenwriting. ;)

I couldn't edit, but I'd like to add that one of my main points is that Daz, in defending its trademarks against infringement by creators serving the same market, is not being a jerk or a money grubber, as so many seem to suggest, but it's just doing its legal duty to avoid losing those trademarks. Again, even though copyright can't be lost this way, there may well be some precedents in trademark law that mean a lax defense of copyright could affect trademarks of the same work. So Daz has to be extremely cautious in the way it permits use of its IP. 

Actually, most screenwriters register their screenplays with the Writers Guild of America. I've done two or three of them myself. So if a movie company does steal your idea, or even bits and pieces, it's relatively easy to prove. And many legitimate screenwriting contests require that your screenplay be registered before they will accept it.

I'm not disagreeing with your point, just showing off my knowledge of screenwriting. ;)

Easy to prove, but then whatcha gonna do? Well, you can't sue. However, I'm guessing -- based on what you wrote -- that if you have the backing of the Guild, you can shame and embarrass a studio if you can prove it stole your idea, and that might well be enough to deter a reputable company from using an idea. ) Edit: And judging from the number of remakes and sequels being made by studios, they are in desperate need of skilled script writers. Last thing they want is for the Guild to sort of "blacklist" them. :)

My hubby wrote a novel last year, and even though he doesn't think it will sell because it serves a rather small niche audience, I still insisted that register the work with the US Copyright Office. There are lots of unscrupulous people in every industry who will try to take advantage of gullible and/or trusting individuals. It's just so much easier to deal with them if you've registered beforehand. Plus, if you ever find work that you've released on the web appearing on another server. if your takedown letter includes the registration number of your work, it generally disappears pretty quickly because you've shown that you're serious, can get a lawyer to defend you, and it will cost them if they don't take it down -- whereas if you don't have a registration number, it's showing them the exact opposite.

Use a stripped v4 donor rig, same as any v4 specific conformer on mp. Used to be a blank v4 floating around out there for such a purpose (I have it). Not seeing the problem...

The donor or development rig was created by DAZ for use in conforming clothing and other add on conformers.  The issue is the fact that the OP has taken the V4 rig which is copyrighted to DAZ and used it to rig an original figure.  The only way I can see DAZ permitting the use of the V4 rig in a figure other than V4 is if it was sold exclusively through DAZ and DAZ garnered it's share of the profits. 

If the product had been ready to go 2 years ago, DAZ would have accepted it.  This product would have been similar to another DAZ vendor's Cyborg that used the V4 rig.  At this stage of things, DAZ no longer provides active support for V4.  They have no problem with a vendor who want's to offer a V4 set along with the G2F set (like the recent sets from Pretty3D) but their primary focus is now on the second generation of Genesis and Generation 6 line.

Use a stripped v4 donor rig, same as any v4 specific conformer on mp. Used to be a blank v4 floating around out there for such a purpose (I have it). Not seeing the problem...

A stripped CR2 stil uses the V4 joint centres and fall-offs - it's there to avoid having to contend with the morph channels. DAZ allows the use of one of its figures' joint setting to create a support item - something like clothes or hair that is, usually, used as an add-on for the base figure - but not for the creation of stand-alone figures. However, looking at your screenshot it's not immediately apprant whey you can do this as a character - texture and morphs - for V4, which would not normally be a problem (as long as any morphs from DAZ or third-party sets were not embedded but were set as dial values, with only hand-sculpted morphs included as deltas).

Oh, yeah... the "derivative that may compete" thing. Good point.

There are conformers such as studiomaya's hitomi and tomo, numerous bodysuits, and countless cyborg add-ons that seriously blur the lines... not sure if this isn't an issue of semantics. Could the figure be anything other than an add-on without an original rig? Considering the time invested, perhaps it's best to classify this as a support item and at least see some recompense for the effort?

Rigging is a functional part of the model, so it is likely not subject to copyright.  However, as Richard points out, using the rig without requiring V4 would almost certainly violate the EULA. 

However, Poser Place Outfitter (available free at RDNA) might be the basis of a script to transfer used by the user to transfer the joint setup from V4 owned by the purchaser to your model (I haven't looked at it in ages, so I'm not certain it works with non weight-mapped rig, but I think it may, as V4WM retains the classic sphere joints in the hands and feet).  Outfitter is open-source under the GPL.

Easy to prove, but then whatcha gonna do? Well, you can't sue. However, I'm guessing -- based on what you wrote -- that if you have the backing of the Guild, you can shame and embarrass a studio if you can prove it stole your idea, and that might well be enough to deter a reputable company from using an idea. ) Edit: And judging from the number of remakes and sequels being made by studios, they are in desperate need of skilled script writers. Last thing they want is for the Guild to sort of "blacklist" them. :)

My hubby wrote a novel last year, and even though he doesn't think it will sell because it serves a rather small niche audience, I still insisted that register the work with the US Copyright Office. There are lots of unscrupulous people in every industry who will try to take advantage of gullible and/or trusting individuals. It's just so much easier to deal with them if you've registered beforehand. Plus, if you ever find work that you've released on the web appearing on another server. if your takedown letter includes the registration number of your work, it generally disappears pretty quickly because you've shown that you're serious, can get a lawyer to defend you, and it will cost them if they don't take it down -- whereas if you don't have a registration number, it's showing them the exact opposite.

Actually you can sue... well, at least you can here in the United States. Some people sue whether they have a leg to stand on or not. But, the registration serves basically the same purpose as a copyright, which is to put a timestamp on the creation of your screenplay. you're not suing for actual copyright violation, you're suing for copyright infringement. You can't honestly tell me that if a company put out several films starring Harry Stone, an orphan boy learning sorcery by attending a wizarding school in North Carolina, that it wouldn't raise a red flag? Now, if that's where the similarity begins and ends, j.k. Rowling hasn't got a leg to stand on. on the other hand if the similarities run deeper than that, a court may see it differently. On the other hand, take Ghostbusters. Harvey Comics sued the film makers because the ghost in the logo design, looked too much like Fatso, one of the Ghostly Trio that appeared in the Casper comic books. They lost. The court ruled that there are only so many ways to depict a ghost and the logo ghost was generic enough that it didn't infringe upon Harvey's copyright.

Easy to prove, but then whatcha gonna do? Well, you can't sue. However, I'm guessing -- based on what you wrote -- that if you have the backing of the Guild, you can shame and embarrass a studio if you can prove it stole your idea, and that might well be enough to deter a reputable company from using an idea. ) Edit: And judging from the number of remakes and sequels being made by studios, they are in desperate need of skilled script writers. Last thing they want is for the Guild to sort of "blacklist" them. :)

My hubby wrote a novel last year, and even though he doesn't think it will sell because it serves a rather small niche audience, I still insisted that register the work with the US Copyright Office. There are lots of unscrupulous people in every industry who will try to take advantage of gullible and/or trusting individuals. It's just so much easier to deal with them if you've registered beforehand. Plus, if you ever find work that you've released on the web appearing on another server. if your takedown letter includes the registration number of your work, it generally disappears pretty quickly because you've shown that you're serious, can get a lawyer to defend you, and it will cost them if they don't take it down -- whereas if you don't have a registration number, it's showing them the exact opposite.

Actually you can sue... well, at least you can here in the United States. Some people sue whether they have a leg to stand on or not. But, the registration serves basically the same purpose as a copyright, which is to put a timestamp on the creation of your screenplay. you're not suing for actual copyright violation, you're suing for copyright infringement. You can't honestly tell me that if a company put out several films starring Harry Stone, an orphan boy learning sorcery by attending a wizarding school in North Carolina, that it wouldn't raise a red flag? Now, if that's where the similarity begins and ends, j.k. Rowling hasn't got a leg to stand on. on the other hand if the similarities run deeper than that, a court may see it differently. On the other hand, take Ghostbusters. Harvey Comics sued the film makers because the ghost in the logo design, looked too much like Fatso, one of the Ghostly Trio that appeared in the Casper comic books. They lost. The court ruled that there are only so many ways to depict a ghost and the logo ghost was generic enough that it didn't infringe upon Harvey's copyright.

You can initiate a suit, even if it doesn't have a chance of winning, but you run the risks of it being dismissed out of hand. Or being hit with a countersuit. And I am talking about the US. Again, you're conflating copyright with trademark. Harry Potter is certainly trademarked, as are the characters, the settings, the names, and so on. The story isn't, however, because you can't trademark "The Hero's Journey". LOL.

Copyright infringement and copyright violation are different words for exactly the same thing.

http://www2.kent.edu/is/security/peertopeer/federal-copyright-law.cfm

In the US, federal courts have jurisdiction over copyright infringement, and the federal court rules require registration with the US Copyright Office before you can even file a claim with them.

"B. Registration as a Prerequisite for Filing Suit

Copyright registration is a precondition for bringing an infringement

lawsuit. The Copyright Act provides that “no action for infringement

of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until. . .

registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance

with this title.”33 Until recently, many courts referred to the lack

of a registration as a defect in subject matter jurisdiction, but

the Supreme Court has clarified that the statute’s registration

requirement is a claim-processing rule that does not restrict a

federal court’s subject matter jurisdiction.3" (on page 4 of PDF linked below)

http://www.whitecase.com/files/Publication/0c3e727d-4944-4529-80d9-81b79d3a7bff/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/8dff9d5a-d6ff-4039-bdf5-83bf7e7e25cb/Legal-Requirements-for-Bringing-Copyright-Infringement-Lawsuit.pdf

And about when a work can be copyrighted or what is "original" (on page 3 of above linked PDF) [Emphasis mine]

"A. Original Work of Authorship

The touchstone of copyright protection is originality. Only “original”

works of authorship are protected by copyright.18 There is no

bright-line rule for what makes a work sufficiently original, though

the standard for proving originality is relatively low. Novelty is not

the standard; rather, a work must “possess some creative spark,

no matter how crude, humble or obvious it might be.”19 While

a compilation of unprotectable facts may possess the requisite

creativity if the compilation itself rises to the level of an original

work of authorship, courts reject the argument that the “sweat of

the brow” – the mere labor expended in compiling the facts – is

sufficient to give rise to copyright protection where originality in

the compilation is otherwise lacking.20 Thus, an alphabetical listing

of names, towns, and telephone numbers in a telephone directory

lacks the requisite creativity to be protected by copyright.21

Proving originality can be one of the more challenging aspects of

a copyright infringement lawsuit. Any potential plaintiff should

be thinking about the issue and, where the requisite originality is

missing, not file an infringement claim."

The PDF I linked to is a good source. (Internet is full of them.) But the actual status of any given work isn't set in stone until the court actually issues a judgment. You might think you're safe and find that you're not, or vice versa. It's not as clear cut as "did the guy rob the bank or not". :)

Finally, since copyright registration is considered prima facie evidence in a copyright suit, should someone steal your unregistered work and then register it under their own name, you could easily find yourself being sued for infringing your own work (it really happens and more often than you think). You may prevail in the end, but it will cost you a lot of money because, even if you file a counterclaim, you will be limited to statutory damages only (the actual demonstrable financial damages you suffered by the infringement -- not the lawsuit), and you'll be hard pressed to get any lawyer to work for you.

If all you needed was a timestamp, the poor man's mail to yourself method, or a simple notarized copy would be sufficient. But it's that prima facie thing -- plus the court rules -- that make registration so important.

This is a very good article on copyright and ideas.

http://www.bitlaw.com/copyright/unprotected.html

 **icprncss2: **

The V4 Development donor rig once offered by Daz3D does not incorporate the entire body, missing the hands, fingers and head, which is the same problem I ran into when trying to create morphs for Dryad using Wardrobe Wizard.

Someone offered to convert the Dryad from V4 to Genesis 2 but I have no way of testing it, and from how they describe the results the conversion was expecting a clothing item, so it moved things around a bit until it was somewhat like clothing.

The alternative is to offer it sans rig and require the user to create their own Dryad rig using their V4 as donor, but some people can't follow directions no matter how simple they are. As for programming in Python, I have no experience with Python other than queries I use at work in ArcGIS.

Eclark1894 & Moriador:

I appreciate the info on copyright, but I really am willing to work with Daz on this, and this Dryad is such a 'unique' character it probably won't see a whole lot of use.

That's the V4 on the Left, and Dryad on the right. 

You could make it as a clothing item, then include a preset to turn the base figure invisible underneath it.

That would probably the the most efficient approach.

.

Was the Dryad originally to be a conformer for V4?  Out of curiosity, did you use spline or box modelling to get the Dryad shape?

Rawnrr: "You could make it as a clothing item, then include a preset to turn the base figure invisible underneath it.

That would probably the the most efficient approach."

It was originally designed to conform to V4, but as it encompasses nearly every part of V4 from head to her toes, the rigging is nearly identical to V4. It is essentially a figure that conforms to be 'inside' V4 rather than outside. Then a material is applied to V4 to give her the leafy texture. The problem is that it does not require V4 to be used. It can be used on its own, but won't have leaves, or an ability to express emotions (No eyes, lips, mouth, etc) It is a new figure based on V4 rigging, which is the problem.

.

This would be a good thread to make a heads up for on the copyright forum. :)

** icprncss2:**"was the Dryad originally to be a conformer for V4?  Out of curiosity, did you use spline or box modelling to get the Dryad shape?"

Yes it was designed to conform to V4, but only to give her a leafy material exterior. As for modeling, I have no idea what those terms mean as I am not a modeler and don't have a modeling program. The Dryad does NOT share any mesh with V4 at all. I used her mesh to serve as the guide for her shape. I created several figures this way, including the Millenium Dragon, but that one will crash Poser unless you have a lot of RAM (it is very resource heavy) 

Aboran, sorry I kinda derailed your main point by getting into full clarifying mode. I wasn't really directing my posts to you. It was more in the way of replies to EClark. I doubt you have much to worry about in terms of Daz stealing your idea (as someone else suggested), and I'm sure you have no intention of violating Daz's IP. It's just a lot of hard work to make it around the restrictions they feel they need to put in place, and it seems to be a real PITA. I hope you do figure out a solution.

Ok, I'm a bit confused here.  If you didn't use a modelling app, how did you create the Dryad?  The only way I know how to model clothing, armor and other conformers is to take the V4 obj into Max, Maya, Silo or Mudbox (depends upon what I'm doing and for whom) and use it as a dress maker's dummy to form the mesh.  I know how to create textures.  I was creating textures back in the P4/PPP/P5 days.  I guess I'm not understanding something.  I'm not trying to be dumb here.  I like the Dryad figure.  I was interested in how you made made it.  I've never been much good at creating things like trees and such.

I'm confused here too. There's something missing. 

If the model is a conformer, and you didn't use V4's mesh to create it, and you don't have a modeling program, how did you create it? Did you use poser's primitives? 

If it's just a texture/shader set, then it doesn't need V4's rig. 

Primitives? I'm intrigued. Not being a modeller myself, I make lots of things out of Poser primitives, but never anything organic. If that really was how it was done, I'd love to know. :) Actually, I'm intrigued anyway.

Edit: Regardless of how it was made... I'm still not seeing how it's fundamentally different from, say, a body suit. I mean, I can load something like V4's bodysuit, that comes with gloves, shoes, and a full mask, and I have no real need to load V4, except for the mouth and eyes. It will take her poses, and I suppose it could wear her clothes. Then again, I'm thinking that a full bodysuit like that isn't permitted by Daz -- except at their store as one of their DO's -- because it's so much of her that you don't need her for the model to be functional. And this is true of this creation, too. 

Perhaps if enough of the wooden part of the dryad were transferred to V4 (as a texture -- in addition to the leaves) that Daz didn't feel the model could stand alone, it would be acceptable.

I can think of a few ways to build something like this from Poser's primitives and the grouping tool, and a whole lot of export and import, but my gods that would make me want to eat my own face off if I tried. And 2 years later I'd probably only be half-way up the leg. Most I've ever done with building in primitives is some of Dr. Geep's set tutorials. They're all mostly resized squares and some cylinders here and there. 

When I buy a really cool interior, I often want an exterior for it. So I make it. But I do it in the construction kit fashion. I make parts, wall panels, wall panels with doors, wall panels with windows, etc, that are all sized to be easy to move so that they fit together. Once they're made, it's easy to create a massive exterior with repeated pieces. I did a whole, large medieval shop with exterior and interior, 3 stories, and a queens post trussed roof using, I think, nothing but the rounded cube, lores cube -- oh, and a flat triangle. It took me a day to make the set of pieces and another day to put them together into the shop itself. Yes, there was some exporting and importing, but not so much that it took a long time. For something organic.... Yikes. Yeah, would be remarkable. And take forever.

Edit: Let me be more precise. For something organic and complex. Because I think I could make a slime mold in five minutes. All I'd have to do is start trying to model, I mean morph something. Anything. It always turns into a slime mold when I try to model, I mean morph something. :D :D (You don't want to see what I did to poor Rex's face.)

Moriador,Ambientshade,  icprncss2

Sorry all, didn't mean to confuse you. There is no black magic involved here. I neglected to mention (for selfish reasons) one other program I used, Ivy Generator by Thomas Luft. An absolutely incredible bit of software, available free, but no longer supported. Easy to use, but maddeningly frustrating to get the results you want. I guess the reason I didn't mention it is because those with more experience can probably crank out a figure in a day, (by importing the results from Ivy Generator into another program to refine the shape) where as it took me the better part of two weeks of watching Ivy grow to get the results I wanted.

It all started with a contest I entered several years ago:

http://www.cornucopia3d.com/contests.php?contest_id=28

My image took second place, but it was a static figure, and I wondered if it was possible to make the figure come 'alive', and after diving into the Poser manuals, figured out a way to make it work. Imagine my surprise when it DID work, and the Dryad came to life!

Several years back when I first started working on a Poser version, I kind of described how I was doing it here in the forums. (I can't find it now- the search feature kind of sucks) But I did write a tutorial for the winning image at cornucopia3d: http://www.cornucopia3d.com/classroom/article.php?id=140&from=makingofs

As for the length of time to get the Dryad complete from start to finish. I have to work for a living and a family to support, (wife was in an accident and is now disabled) and as a state employee I don't make a lot of money to do all of that, definitely not enough time or money to get or learn new software. I don't get much time to 'play' around, and this is probably the most amount of time I've spent online in years (being the holidays helps). yada yada yada, you all didn't came for a sob story. Basically I had to really learn how to use Poser (Before I was posing figures, exporting them out for Vue) The material room still confuses the hell out of me. Still don't like the lights in Poser, much harder than they need to be, but that's a different topic for another day.  Anyway, long story short: I took me two years to get to this point.

**
**

 Still don't like the lights in Poser, much harder than they need to be, but that's a different topic for another day.  Anyway, long story short: I took me two years to get to this point.

And that's a topic I want to hear about. I don't understand the problems people have with Poser lights. It's based on theater lighting and photographic lighting. I do admit that I wish it had a generic "sun" light, that you could adjust and make into moon light, but really, what's so hard to figure out? Don't bother answering. I know I'm off topic.

I remember the original thread here about AboranTouristCouncil's early endeavors with the IvyGenerator/V4 hybrid... apparently he was having some trouble with mesh distortion due to bits of the ivy falling outside of a joints spherical fall off zones. Can't seem to track down older threads with the search function like I used to.

Anyway, just to clarify a comment I made earlier about using a stripped V4 rig, I wasn't referring to the Daz V4 developer kit Cr2 but rather a stripped Cr2 created by editing the file in a text editor and removing the morphs, morph channels and groupings, magnets, readscript lines, ik information, materials. The advantage to this is that, unlike the Dev kit, the rig may still retain the head parts... something the Dryad figure/conformer would probably require. Strangely enough, years ago, an individual on the Daz forums (DavidGB) had created such files for V4/M4 and was linking the files there. Not sure if there was any controversy over such...

While you can't use V4's rig for the Dryad, you might be able to use a rig from an open source figure such as the Project Human figures.  I qualify this as a might because I'm not 100% certain of this.  You might try the copyright forum.  They are likely to have a better idea about this.  You could also contact Sixus1.  They are the original creators of the Project Human series.  Just a possibility you might consider.

Icprncss2 has a point... anyway you can see the particular license for S1M's PHfemale/male figures @ open3Dproject.org. they can be downloaded at sharecg. Don't imagine it would require an exorbitant amount of fiddling to fit your mesh to those figures/rigs. Keep in mind, having played around with said figures myself, that the bending is quite terrible... but, the mesh you are using might allow a little forgiveness in that area. Plus you could always tweak in the joint editor.

...Strangely enough, years ago, an individual on the Daz forums (DavidGB) had created such files for V4/M4 and was linking the files there. Not sure if there was any controversy over such...

They are here.  I don't recall any controversy; I found the links on the DAZ Forum..... http://www.acol56.ukgateway.net/V4BLANK.zip
http://www.acol56.ukgateway.net/M4BLANK.zip

As far as alternate rigs, if you have Poser Pro (any year) it includes redistributable figures you could nick the rig from...

EDIT they are in the Figure Library under, strangely enough, Poser Pro.  There is a male and female...

Primorge:

You sir, have an incredible memory. I'm flattered that you would remember such a post. Anyway, the figure has come a long ways since then, and the problem I was trying to solve then turned out to be a very basic mistake on my part, and kicked myself for many days after realizing it.

icprncss2: While using other rigs may be an alternative, the problem lies in getting the Dryad figure to match the host V4 figure precisely. The Dryad has to match V4 poses exactly, or the illusion is lost of the leaves serving to define the edge of the Dryad, and give her the ability to express emotions.

WandW: Thank you so much for the links! This looks like it will solve the problem with all the remaining (but empty) morph channels that the Dryad can't use. Thanks for the info on other rigs, but they won't work unless I make the Dryad a truly unique figure.

Interesting bit of news:

A friend of mine using Daz3D did manage to make the Dryad work with Genesis 2.  He sent a quick test render to check the results. As he described it: "First let me explain something. To work with Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 you don't need any rigging at all. It works just like clothes. I converted it for genesis just by exporting the OBJ Branches out and back in and used autofit in the form of V4. That's it, and Really anyone that knows the Daz Studio software can do this."   

Sounds like a viable solution via the genesis figure, then... not really familiar with Daz Studio personally but it sounds like you would have alot less obstacles if you chose to pursue a commercial route.

Best wishes.