I actually made this just to kill some time this week. This cool watercooler prop. Fits in nicely with the Office scene that comes with Poser 2014. And it's a freebie.

http://www.sharecg.com/v/81159/browse/11/Poser/Watercooler-prop-for-Poser

@Shane
I like the bedsettee, the colours, the open reel recorder, the half-naked retrobabe, the picture on the wall, the projector, the whole damn thing!

@Teyon
Looks cool as always though I think the bottom half of his feet look too short, he looks like it wopuld be a nightmare for him to walk in real life.
Maybe if the hooves where longer and jutted forward more it would fix it, but the bottom part looks a bit off right now (thought it's just my opinion).

@Clarkie
Cool to see Roxie putting out her sexiness, she doesn't even have to try, she's hot by default (unlike a Vickie).

Retopo of the body and reprojection of the secondary forms is done. Now to sculpt in the tertiary details, create teeth,gums,tongue and eyes and then begin textures/rigging.

I will probably lengthen the foot before I start in on the detailing. Also I need to start thinking about clothing options.

Hey all,
I had some time to spare and started morphing Alyson. (Yes the original one.)
In Poser, I deleted all the dependencies, and all the magnets (Whaw, lots and lots of those in the collar-shoulder area.)
Then I adapted the obj file in Bender.
I am not going for the young, but the more mature age group.

Some observations :

• Once you get rid of the dependencies and magnets, Alyson becomes very usable and morphable.
• The object file is easy to adapt when you know where you are going.
  ( I probably will never understand why all the dependencies and corrections were for... The obj file was so easy to adapt in the first place)
• Ach, the breast height. => See were the breasts are on the original!
• Both have the same facial expressions morphs dials in (for the time being).
• Original textures used, but all materials changed in the advanced material room.
• Still a lot to do. Alyson has a "hard" face, difficult to change overall.
  Any comments?

You know vilters, granted, the breasts on Poser women defy gravity, but , aty least in the US, most women still wear bras, especially those with large breasts and their job is to lift and seperate the breasts. Unless lowering the breasts is a specific morph, you're kind of defeating the purpose.

It's an improvement, especially around the armpits, but I think her neck is too thick for a woman, and the head seems a bit too big.
Women generally have thinner, more slender necks than men, so it looks a bit mismatched the way it is.

She could do with a bush as well!

@ Earl

• Breast height is texture related.  Breasts come in two ways clothed and nude.

a) When you build and UV_Map breasts for a clothed woman, the texture streches when you "morph lower the breast" to render nudes. => Texture steching.

b) When you build and UV_Map breasts for a nude woman, the texture streches when you make an "in clothing morph". But this does not matter, as "in clothing? They are covered anyway. The texture streching becomes "hidden" behind the clothing.

That is why it is better to model and UV_Map breasts nude. => Yes, gravity takes over here. But you have no UV_Map streching when rendering nudes.
(b) is therefor the better option.

@ Pumeco, a bush goes on the texture and displacement maps.

trying to use walk-designer to make smooth animated.pz2 walk cycles for aiko3.

@Vilters
You should really be working for SM.

@Misty
Good luck with that, I've never been able to get a completely smooth walk cycle out of that crappy old Walk Designer.

Latest result:

• Material zones reduced to six; Body, Head, Eyes, Teeth&Gums, Lashes, Corneas
• More Math room work, but still using the original textures (I put a default Alyson in also to show the difference.)

Next : More cr2 cleaning, some more upper body work, and most of all "face work".
=> The face is too hard, and too high in Y.

Have a good week all.

Teyon : Cool Monster.

Vilters : why do you keep making the same morph using different meshes ?
what all meshes have you made that morph for ? Alyson,Roxie ???
can't find a mesh that will do what ya want ?

EClark1894 : nice water cooler but I can't take my eyes of the mini dress ;)

@ RorrKonn

One reason only actually:

To show that a mesh is just that. A wireframe to hang a texture on. And you can morph any mesh, be it from 8.000 to 80.000 polygons, into any shape.
And yes,  I also have a similar Roxie. LOL. The "similarity" is also helped because I used the same hair.

Yeah, listen Vilters, if you make me look like that I'm gonna use my blade!!!
You wouldn't dare!!!

Later,
Roxie - Girl With Blade

Too late.

Sounds like poor Roxie got Monsterised by Vilters!
Can't wait to see this :-D

Hey, she showed up more then once a few months ago. I"ll put her in line the next preview.

vilters : can you name all the meshes that has your morph ?

Do you think it's easier to model ,map ,texture ,normals ,rig ,tweak ,morph ,work with etc etc a 8000 poly count character then a 80,000 polycount character ? 

** **

In bath now, so I will answer in detail later.

First you have to ask yourself one question; What is gonna be the purpose?  A figure in the distance, or a close up?

The workflow for a high res or low res mesh is exactly the same. Time equals details required.
Close ups require more detail, require more polygons, require more work.

• Best rigging? Around the 10.000 to 20.000 polygons give the best rigging.
• As few material zones as possible. => Usually the first that I clean are material zones. And DUMP ALL but diffuse textures.
  (Poser can do a far better Job internally then all the garbage provided by most. And YES, I am HARD here, I know. Sorry.)

Most time goes in cleaning the cr2; Removing ALL dependencies, JCM's, magnets and other pollution I can find.
ALL, and I repeat, ALL goes out. -> Well, wih the kind of morphing I do, nothing would work any more anyhow. LOL.

And then morph the object file in Blender.

Then weightmap it.

And then comes the difficult part; The final tweaking/adjusting.

That is a fluent combination of "morphing with the weightmap", and "morphing with the object file".

This takes most time. Finding the right combination between weightmap morrhing and obj morphing.
That's why the Blender/Poser comb is great. With my workflow, I can walk in and out of Blender with an obj file at will.
Ach, the object file. I could write books about that.......

Never-ever will you find a JCM or a dependency in what I make;
If I'm not satisfied? => Change the weightmap or change the object file.
But NEVER ever add pollution to a cr2.

And I always try to reuse the original diffuse textures in about the same advanced material room setup.
(Most textures slightly adapted and combined into a single 8196x8196 map.)

Well, not bad for a quick answer in a bathtub. LOL.

Most time goes in cleaning the cr2; Removing ALL dependencies, JCM's, magnets and other pollution I can find. 

ALL, and I repeat, ALL goes out. -> Well, wih the kind of morphing I do, nothing would work any more anyhow. LOL.

And this is why nobody should listen to your workflow lol, because it is not the standard for content creation, but for personal preference. Also since your rigging is so good and doesn't depend on Jcm's or other pollution as you call it, can you show me some extreme poses? Or is every render of your figures of them just standing? You claim to know so much with very little proof via render examples. I am not trying to be a doubter here, but I have never seen anything you post make me go "Wow, that is actually bloody good". So convince me that your way of doing things is better. Please, I beg of you. If not, then please, stop preaching your personal views of how content and figures should be made. Now..Enjoy the rest of your bath:)

I fail to see the advantage to reducing the number of material zones on a figure. Seems to me the more you have (within reason) the more customizable it is. That's one of the things I actually hate about the native Poser figures. I WANT the torso, arms, hip, legs, hand and feet to have separate mat zones.

Same here. Separate is better. When you do projection texturing it doesn't matter how many groups you have. Only people that really want less texture zones are ones who don't know how to paint across seams. That is the only advantage I see of having one map. Even so, it makes modifying textures harder because the maps are now warped or skewed on the edges because all the detail is trying to fit on one or less maps and doesn't really make it an advantage or easier to work with. Oh but wait, maybe more maps equals more pollution. Maybe that's why one map is better. Another example of personal preference that isn't really viable.

Zev0
I fear you have no clue about "end user friendly"

Less material zones is better
Fewer seams is better

Unless??
unless you are a simple dial spinner, and never change anything.

Everc hung a HSV node in the math room?
Well go ahead and add it on "V" whatever on all materials and all maps.
And do some changes.

See ya back in a week or 2. LOL.

You probably go to Mc Donalds, and never cook either.

Blah Blah Blah. Yeah, all I read is that you don't have any proof that your method is any better:) So are you going to show me or not? Yes or no?

Sorry, previous anwser was too fast.

 I know What I do is "Not standard".

With the morphs I make, none of the Original morphs work any more, that's why I clean the lot out.
And because none of the Original morhs work any more, all JCM's can go out also.

Stays, the obj file, the weightmap, the bulgemap , the cr2 and the diffuse textures on a reduced number of material zones.

Try to do what I do in the math room without reducing the number of mat zones, and it drives you crazy.

 Oh, and as far as bending goes?
I showed some time ago, and my beta testers ave them too.

This is to show morphability of meshes. From 8.000 polygons upwards.

So show me now. Forgive me if I do not hunt down every pic you post.

vilters : thanks for the info.

I consider any character with a polycount hier then 6000 a high poly count ;) normal maps are for close ups :)

@RorrKonn

I prefer bump and displacement maps, because Posers material room "forgets" specular on normal maps.

And on a side note:

If you check a particular bend, and you are not comp!etely satisfied?

Change-adapt the object file, or adapt the weightmap, or adapt the bulge map. In this order.

All tools are good tools to prevent a JCM, or to prevent a magnet, or to prevent a dependency.

Why on earth are so many so afraid to change-adapt an original object file?

Tony, if you're talking user friendly, wouldn't that mean less work for the end user? Now see, this image would take me more work with any of the women that come with poser because those nylons are just a texture and all the women that come with poser have one group and I would have to add a new mat zone  to accommodate it. Or I'd have to make a mask and use blender nodes. Still more work and would involve an image editor, something I have but don't always want to use.

That means more work for me, the end user. Now, I, nor anyone else here is saying each joint needs a new material zone. That's the other end of extreme. But like all things a happy medium needs to be found.

I know that more mat zones can mean more work tweaking but I find I rarely add that same change to every zone. I've done scenes with enough people that they took 20 minutes to load. And I had to tweak a lot in that. I know what a pain it can be. But I'd rather take that time and have it look good that to pump out a bunch of crap just for the sake of doing it quickly. (not saying yours is crap, like Zev0 says, you don't post much beyond your morphed women standing around doing nothing but smiling) (kind of like this lovely lady :))

Since every ones is posting females ,W.I.P. polycount 4112

Vilters : That's what Ambient Occlusion and Specular Maps are for ;)

 RedPhantom : nice stockings :)

Looks like BB's stocking shaders, RP. But that's what I'm talking about. Unless you create new groupings on the native figures, you can't use BB's stocking shader on them. I would have loved to have added that shader to my Dancer Outift for both Roxie and Miki 4. But unless the end user knew how to create the groupings and was willing to do so, I had to settle for a painted texture over Roxie's legs.

Started texturing.

Good luck breaking his jaw ;)

Teyon is that zBrush or KeyShot ? 

Started texturing.

I have been teaching myself this over the last 3 days and every time I get something right I notice something else that isn't.

 Goodmorning all, not behind Poser PC, so demo's will have t wait.

@ Redphantom

STOCKINGS :
Well, you have to paint the stockings tecture anyway, so you will have a texture to blend over the originall skin.
If you use the trick I demonstrated somewhere in 2012 on a silk corset I think?
You do not need a seperate mask. Poser can build the mask internally better then anybody can.
Blend the stockings over the Original skin, and done. The internally automatically created mask takes care of ALL the rest.

See more details in this tread where I end up blending a corset on V4 without using a handpainted mask but let Poser automatically create a mask for me, and this automatically created mask aslo drives displacement to give it "thickness".
The corset textures were not mine, so I had to work with what I got, but it worked. => I would do it different now.
http://renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?search=corset&expression=advanced&older_age=200&older_units=day&newer_age=5000&newer_units=day&adv_department=12356&username=vilters
    
@ RorrKonn

I use bump and or displacement, and can keep the texturing simpler because I do not need to paint, use and connect specular maps to overcome the normal /specular map issue.

In the figures above : The only textures used are the diffuse textures. I let Poser build bump/displacement and blinn internally from the diffuse map, to get the complete shader.

Example1: Where do you want displacement? Brows are a good example. So connect a Math_Functions Substract node to the diffuse texture to invert and greyscale it, and use that as displacement combined with a turbulence node.

Example2; Where do you want specular? NOT on the brows LOL. So you do not need to invert the diffuse texture, and can connect it directly to drive the Blinn node.
Well, there is more to it then this, but the basic setup is relatively simple and all are driven in one way or another by the diffuse texture.

Having less material zones makes it dead easy to math room changes as i also demonstrated long time ago, with a set of figures, from white over asian to african skinned figures, all using the same textures, and changing ONE value in the shader setup only.

@ Teyon,
Whaw that's gonne be a scary guy. LOL.

Have a nice day all.

 Goodmorning all, not behind Poser PC, so demo's will have t wait.

@ Redphantom

STOCKINGS :
Well, you have to paint the stockings tecture anyway, so you will have a texture to blend over the originall skin.
If you use the trick I demonstrated somewhere in 2012 on a silk corset I think?
You do not need a seperate mask. Poser can build the mask internally better then anybody can.
Blend the stockings over the Original skin, and done. The internally automatically created mask takes care of ALL the rest.

See more details in this tread where I end up blending a corset on V4 without using a handpainted mask but let Poser automatically create a mask for me, and this automatically created mask aslo drives displacement to give it "thickness".
The corset textures were not mine, so I had to work with what I got, but it worked. => I would do it different now.
http://renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?search=corset&expression=advanced&older_age=200&older_units=day&newer_age=5000&newer_units=day&adv_department=12356&username=vilters

Geez, Tony you just hit my extreme yuck spot with that thread. I can't STAND painted on clothes. The only time i want to see them is on REAL female models.

BTW, Teyon, nice texture painting. I'm going to bow out of my conversation now, because I think it's distracting from the actual purpose of the thread though.

Good luck breaking his jaw ;)

Teyon is that zBrush or KeyShot ? 

ZBrush. Thanks gang.

@ Earl 
Well Earl, stockings, are ?
LOL.

Yes the Blending thing only works for "skin-fitting" clothes, like stockings.

And Poser can build the mask internally, no need to make or paint it manually.
Just make the stockings diffuse texture, and let the material room do the rest for you.

@ Teyon,
Let me guess;
Teyon's artistical fingerwork + Zbrush + Normal map. => NICE work.

Yours truly woul be something like.;
Tony's mouse + Blender + Bump/Displacement. => Just testing.

 In the 1930's nylon was very expensive.

And in some regions "girls" were not allowed to show their legs, but they could not afford stockings.
So?
They painted stockings on their legs. And in those days, stockings had seams, They painted the seams and all..

And during the war;
http://glamourdaze.com/2013/01/1940s-wartime-fashion-paint-your-own-stockings.html

 http://www.cosmeticsandskin.com/bcb/stockings.php

Just Google "1930 painted stockings".

Have fun using the Poser tools. LOL

@Teyon
You really do have an amazing knack of representing bone, muscle, and cartilage under the skin, even the thickness of the skin is clearly apparent.
Thumbs up, looks great.

@Clarkie
I wonder if bodypaint means she's no longer nude, cause let's face it, paint is just a different form of covering to cloth, but it's still a covering.  Regards the use on Poser figures, I think it's useful for some bodysuits and other very close-fitting stuff, but in general I agree, I don't like them on Poser figures.

No, Tony, I didn't paint those stockings, those are bb's procedural stockings with Miki's original skin texture. All the clothes are bb's procedural shaders. I had to use a mask on the dress to combine the velvet and sequin shaders and let me tell you it's a pain to combine 2 of bb's shaders. And you wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump though when I wanted to use his mithral and satin shaders in one mat zone. I never counted but I think there's something like a million nodes now. It's more than just adding the 2 shaders together plus a few blender nodes because I had to make duplicates of some nodes that he originally had hooked up to multiple other nodes but the shaders are too complicated to follow all that.

I did skim your link. I don't have time to read it all now. I should be making breakfast. Looks interesting. How does it work with procedural shaders where there is no image map? Or where sometimes you need a negative mask? (in the case of your example, needing to mask the clothing rather than the skin? I wouldn't necessarily want SSS on a velvet shader, or not the same sss as the skin, at least.)

 @ Pumeco

I agreed; I'd only use it for skin tight clothing;

• Silk gloves
• Stockings,
• Some skintight underware

Diffuse texture + Automatically created and driven displacement.

Teyon, that looks good. I finally figured out what I can use him for. My son's freaking out over him.

Thanks again. :) Nearly done with the first pass of skin.

 @ redphantom
Oh, but I fully agree. There is no "one size fits all" solution. And every new Poser version eliminates some of the "old style" faking we find in the older of BB's shader setups.

And? Material room work needs to be pré-planned for the renderer and the render settigns  you are gonna use. Render in firefly? Octane? Other? Its not gonna be the same shader setup. Render in another Poser version? => its not gonna be the same shader setup.
That is why => KISS, keep it simple.

What I do is not standard at all.
Neither in my object file morphing, neither in my morphing using the Weightmap and / or the Bulge map either. Neither in my math room work.

See? That is where BB and I are very different.

BB is a math masterbrain. ( Also notice that I call the Material room the Math room? LOL. )
BB tries to get all his shaders mathematically correct. And he does a GREAT job at that.

I try to get my shaders "3D visually acceptable", while maintaining "end user friendlyness" as one of the top priorities.
While he needs 100 nodes to get something mathematically correct, I use far and far less.

3D is all about "fooling" the eye. => Because in the end, when all is said, done and over with? We are looking at a flat screen. => 2D.

See the default Alyson, and my morphed ALyson on the previous page?
=> See the collars and the breasts?
=> See the hip / thight?
=> See the skin shader using only six material zones and a node setup using only diffuse maps? = Less memory hungry

The morphing, the cr2, the node setup, all go in the same direction.
=> "Visualy acceptable", while maintaining "end user friendlyness" as top priority.
KISS.

The morphing, the cr2, the node setup, all go in the same direction.
=> "Visualy acceptable", while maintaining "end user friendlyness" as top priority.
KISS.

To quote: Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.