Yeah i know - depends on who you ask. But i ask YOU, so what would you say?

To explain my question:

I really loved Victoria 4.2 - but in recent renders I use 1080p and on close-ups it really becomes visible that this character is rather low poly, i think around 67,000 Polygons?

I do like the Genesis characters, buuuuut - being more of a native DS character i find them behaving rather sluggish in Poser.

So I am looking for a Poser character that is high-poly enough for close-ups and behaves rather well (A "native" poser character???). A big plus would be if it is kinda popular character and has at least some nice texture packs and/or morphs available.

Any recommendations? What would YOU recommend and why?

:)

Big thanks in advance for all feedback!!!

If you need more polys than V4, then there are no figures I'd recommend in either DS or Poser compatible formats. They're all around 70k polys or less.

On the other hand, if you've got Poser 10 or PP2014, you could just turn on subdivision. Then you can have a V4 with a million polys, if your system can handle it.

There's also quite a noticeable difference if you're rendering with smooth polygons on or off.

I have Poser Pro 2014 and i render with LuxRender. I tried to enable Subdivision in LuxRender and edited the Crease angle, but both just worsened the problem.

Here is a picture of Victoria 4 - under extreme lighting conditions it is very visible (look at the shoulder). Is there any trick?

What do you mean by 'best' model? What exactly are you looking for? Bending? Morphability? Expressions? details? Support?

Every model has its strengths and weaknesses, I recommend trying them all and see what suits you best! :)

Which version of poser do you have. Each one comes with new figures. People may recommend one for a version you don't have.

Also some will recommend you try subdividing your figure to help with the low-poly problem. It's a nice feature if you have it but it can sluggish up your computer too, unless you don't subdivide until just before rendering.

If you're worried about 67000 being too low poly, you might have a problem. The only figure I have higher is Miki 4. That's not to say I have every figure. Someone might have a better suggestion.

RedPhantom posted at 7:56AM Mon, 12 October 2015 - #4233326

Which version of poser do you have. Each one comes with new figures. People may recommend one for a version you don't have.

Also some will recommend you try subdividing your figure to help with the low-poly problem. It's a nice feature if you have it but it can sluggish up your computer too, unless you don't subdivide until just before rendering.

If you're worried about 67000 being too low poly, you might have a problem. The only figure I have higher is Miki 4. That's not to say I have every figure. Someone might have a better suggestion.

Poser Pro 2014. For Victoria 4 subdivision is not available since it is not unimesh i think? ALso if i understand it right subdivision only help if you render in Poser (Firefly) which is not an option.

I used subdivision in LuxRender, but it only worsened the problem, creating artifacts at other places of the mesh. If higher polygon count does not help (I thought Victoria 4 is pretty "aged" and newer characters would be higher res), then what is the final trick here? Or am I just the only one ever doing close-ups (The above sample pic isn't even THAT close i think)...

I think vicky can be converted to unimesh. I'm not at my poser computer atm so I can't check. Most figures can. I don't know it reality will use poser's subdividing.

Newer figures are made with the idea that subdividing is available so they are made lower poly so as to not be as taxing on machines during scene setup.

Have you tried subdividing any other figures in reality? Dawn has about half the polys of vicky so you may need to divide her more. Or try snarly's subdivider. http://orphans.basicwiz.com/ I don't know if it works in pp2014 or with reality but it might be an option.

Yep, V4 takes unimesh skinning just fine.

Also, Snarly's Subdivider is another option. If Poser's subd doesn't translate to Lux, use Snarly's script. It converts the figure into an obj. You might need to make sure the "undo after render" option is unchecked. If it's unchecked, it creates an actual prop out of the figure, which you could save to your library as well (to load into other scenes perhaps), if you wanted.

Tyler (ryan2) for males. Miki3 for female.

V4 with her 77.000 polygons is one of the highest polygon figures available for Poser.

Do the following:

a) Use Snarly's scenefixer to set the crease angle on all groups to 180°. If you do not have scenefixer, you will have to do it manually in each of the groups parameters.

b) Always render with Smoothing enabled in the render settings.

c) If you have Poser Pro of a later version set SubD to level1.

Setting crease angle to 180° and rendering with Smooth polygons enabled in the render settings will expand your figure slightly Setting SubD to level 1 will shrink the figure slightly. They even out each other.

i nevvverrr enable smoothing in render settings never ever everrr

SubDing the figure isn't going to fix a rigging/mesh creasing problem like that. It's just going to be a smoother too high shoulder/chest crease. Post it with the clone brush in an image editor or resculpt that area a little on the welded mesh. Moving that region down, tweaking, and smooth brushing in zbrush (or any other modeler with decent sculpting tools) solves that problem. You basically want to fix how the deltoid joins with the pectoral. Of course it helps from the get go if your using a wm or jcm fixed version of the figure. You'll probably want to go with some kind of prefab fix, many people can't be bothered to resculpt things on their own. Maybe the morph tool could help.

...I always render with smoothing. The only way to truly get rid of smoothing on a mesh is setting crease angle 0, or basically setting edges as hard in poser. Control edges work too.

you turn on render settings smoothing?

sanity check >.< sanity check please lol

oh, we're talking about reality render settings?

sorry, never used reality. don't know what poser render settings do for reality

backs out of thread

No, I was talking about Poser Firefly misty. The only time that I've ever encountered problems with smoothing in Poser is with some artifacts (especially in conjunction with RT shadows) which can be dealt with in various ways, or when something is modeled like crap or isn't made specifically with Poser smoothing in mind.

haegerst posted at 6:42PM Mon, 12 October 2015 - #4233322

I have Poser Pro 2014 and i render with LuxRender. I tried to enable Subdivision in LuxRender and edited the Crease angle, but both just worsened the problem.

Here is a picture of Victoria 4 - under extreme lighting conditions it is very visible (look at the shoulder). Is there any trick?

This looks like a specular issue, not a V4 issue. V4 is a high poly figure and, with some of the sub-D algorithms available in later versions of Poser, you can get quite good results. With weight-mapping, you can get extremely good deformations. Even with standard rigging, you can get very good to excellent deformations. With the ability to create JCMs and other morphs, on the fly, using Poser's sculpting brush and dependency settings... There really is no practical end to the complexity and details you can get with that figure. Well, except for geometry, that is, which you can't really invent. BUT, if you're really that hungry for details, Poser works just fine with normal mapping, so you can take V4 into 3D app, sub-d it to a ridiculous amount, sculpt away and then export a normal map for extreme detail... mostly.

The issue is not one of polygons with V4. There only a very fair number of instances when one might want more polygons with a figure like V4 and, only then, in very specific situations with high-resolution close-up renders. Even then, almost all of them can be taken care of by careful modeling of morphs and various bump/displacement or normal mapping.

As far as I know, in regards to detail and true model diversity/capability, there's nothing you really can't create with V4 if it's a relatively humanoid figure. (Within certain boundaries, of course. But, if you're pushing those, you're already a 3D modeler and can augment V4 much more than a novice... and, thus, don't need to be told any of this. :) )

On smoothing: There are a number of points of confusion using that word... To some, "Smoothing" means Subdivision, which is an entirely different ball of wax and its "smoothing effect" is entirely dependent upon what algorithms are being used. I don't know which algorithms Poser uses, so can't comment on that.

But, in rendering, like in Firefly, there is an effect called "Smooth Shading." Smooth shading in Poser can be activated either from the Object Menu or can be overridden, to a certain extent, in the Firefly render options. In essence, smooth shading takes the averages of vertice normals and "shades" them in order to present a surface desired by the user. In the rendering options in Firefly, one can override all object settings in a scene to a certain Smooth Shading value or can turn on/off Smooth Shading as desired.

However, the model in question that is using Smooth Shading must have enough vertices in order to render the surface properly. Remember - It only works on the vertice normal average, so if there aren't enough vertices, there won't be enough input to make a sensible render of the surface. That's why very low poly objects will appear to "inflate" or "break apart" when Smooth Shading is enabled.

In high-poly models, Smooth Shading (for organic objects like people, animals, etc) can give very nice results. The values for smooth shading tell the program at what "real" angle, from measured vertice to measured vertice, to apply the Smooth Shading. Any angle over the input value will be shaded and any under it will not. (Or, may have greatly reduced effects. Sometimes, it doesn't appear to quite work as it's supposed to on angles below xx value.)

To answer the OP: V4 is quite a hefty figure and is very versatile. With Poser's tools and the availability to weight-map it, if desired, it's an extremely compliant figure and very accepting of even radical morphs and deformations. (The default Poser rigging isn't bad, either, and with additions like X&M's JCMs and morphs, V4 can be extremely realistic. With customized morphs and deformers, it's really... pretty darn awesome.) :)

The best figure to use, is the one you want too.

/thread

In terms of content available and customization, V4 is still the queen in Poser.

haegerst I'm not A Poser render guru but something's wrong with your render other then the mesh. Unimesh has nothing to do with Subdivide meshes. You might need to turn V4 SubD's on but I'm not sure. V4 polycount is so high cause Poser didn't have SubD's. DAZ Studio was made so DAZ could make SubD meshes . Cause High End App's don't like 60,000 polycount character. G1,2,3 polycount is around 20,000.

High end app's use a character polycount around 20,000 and a lot of maps. DAZ Poser characters don't have all the maps. some of DAZ characters has what I think DAZ calls HD.

I saw in your gallery you play with different app's n render engines.

If you want killer close ups.that you see in high end app's .well you half to use a high end app.

Wow, so many posts! At first - big thanks to all of you. I value every single feedback and it already helped me a lot. Thanks for making this a great and helpful community.

OK so the Polygon count is not the big problem here, thanks for making that clear. Still it made me curious, so I experimented a bit with the Gnarly subdivision script.

It does indeed make the figure much more high poly, i used "3" as a subdivision level (which seems to be the maximum) and the render in Luxrender already improved really a lot. Ironically it now renders faster in Luxrender. I guess that props are easier to handle than figures by Luxrender. I would not have expected that since the Poser scene file bloated from around 6 MB to like 560 MB (!!!)... So benefit from it - if you wanna speed up stills rendering from Poser characters convert then to a prop.

Next i will try that scenefixer script - is this the latest version?

http://orphans.basicwiz.com/

I don't use firefly besides for preview renders since i discovered LuxRender. I find that my render look much better in LuxRender - even though it is obviously much slower.

I really originally thought it must be the polygon count because Victoria 4 is like nearly 10 years old? I come from Vue where i often render scenes with millions of polygons, so i thought 77,000 is pretty low. Thanks for correcting me there!

I will experiment a bit more and compare different approaches. The subdivision script is "good to know" but it also makes everything slower in poser and turns figures to props. So probably not an option for animations... And it just resulted in a glitch ball for the hair (The hair is not that much of a problem though).

I am also curious how the scene fixer with the 180 degree crease angle will work out - that sounds promising i think.

I also wanna look into "weight mapping", i have heard that term before, but i don't really know what it is. I will search for some info about it only and how it can help me. Definitely a topic that makes me curious.

shvrdavid posted at 8:31PM Tue, 13 October 2015 - #4233429

The best figure to use, is the one you want too.

/thread

Nothing else ;)

Scene fixer with crease angle did NOT work. The tools is still very handy and nice to have, but i think the crease angle and smoothing only affect renders with poser (firefly).

I uploaded the subdivided mesh render on my gallery if someone is interested. Still not happy with the lighting and I will try to add a necklace. Also gonna zoom in a little bit more since i want it to be portrait style. But looks already close to what i had in mind. So thanks again to everyone here for your valuable input and helping me out!

the lower a polycount character is the better they bend.

weight mapping is to help a character bend better.

weights glue meshes dots or points or vertices to the bone buy percentage .

you can glue a vertice to a bone at 100 %.

or take the same vertice glue it to one bone at 10% and 90% to another bone.

so 2 bones can control the same vertice.

Sorry off-topic but i can't stand it:

The use of the word "vertice" is annoying as hell. It is not a word. The word is

vertex

Both in English and in Latin.

The plural can be vertexes or vertices.

There is no singular word vertice.

haegerst posted at 8:14PM Wed, 14 October 2015 - #4233322

I have Poser Pro 2014 and i render with LuxRender. I tried to enable Subdivision in LuxRender and edited the Crease angle, but both just worsened the problem.

Here is a picture of Victoria 4 - under extreme lighting conditions it is very visible (look at the shoulder). Is there any trick?

If you're using Reality 4.1 with Lux 1.5, there's a problem with SSS in extreme light. The mesh lines start showing up as white. Turning off SSS in the Reality material editor makes the problem go away.

bagginsbill you seem to be aggravated a lot. with me ,Renderosity etc etc.

Come on over n will get us some girls and have a drink or two and burn a few.

will retiring from worrying and let the world worry about it. ;)

Makes me wonder if there's a Rendo member named Vertice. Didn't trees exist before a word was MADE UP for them?

Anyways...

The V4 above looks fake because she is totally symmetrical ( is that a word? Jeez, this is a tough forum ). That skin texture looks great. I like your lighting. Her face looks like a cartoon character's perfectly symmetrical face. The imperfections sell the reality.... in my opinion.

So use the split morph on the face and body and create whatever asymmetry makes it look more realistic to you. I do it all the time. The base mesh has to be symmetrical to allow for ease of rigging and content creation.

Coleman posted at 2:12AM Fri, 16 October 2015 - #4233776

Makes me wonder if there's a Rendo member named Vertice. Didn't trees exist before a word was MADE UP for them?

Anyways...

The V4 above looks fake because she is totally symmetrical ( is that a word? Jeez, this is a tough forum ). That skin texture looks great. I like your lighting. Her face looks like a cartoon character's perfectly symmetrical face. The imperfections sell the reality.... in my opinion.

Interesting opinion. I looked at your gallery but i couldn't find a good example for an asymetrical face. You have any picture that would be good for studying that technique?

your all are wondering off the page now .

realism has very little if any thing to do with symmetrical.

realism is in the shading, maps n lighting ,rendering.

"The V4 above looks fake because she is totally symmetrical "

Sorry mate.. but this is just plain bollocks

From where did this notion come ????

http://faceresearch.org/students/symmetry

The things that make poser figure renders look "Fake" the most are: (in no particular order)

Hand Painted skin & eye textures TRANSMAPPED HAIR with BAKED in highlights a LACK of thickness in the geometry of the lower eyelids. poorly designed overall topogrpahy that ignores human anatomy ( see Apollo Maximus LOL!!)

Non PBR lighting&rendering systems.

Most of the Famously good looking people in Fashion modeling& Film& TV have perfect or near perfect Facial symmetry.

Check the faces of your local/national on air news anchor people

You dont hear people complaining that Denzel washington or Kate Winslet's perfect left/right facial symmetry is making them look "Fake" on screen.

I highly doubt anyone can spot topological asymmetry, or even symmetry, in V4, just from a simple render.

However, there is some merit to asymmetry, but it has nothing to do with topology. It has to do with expressions, body movement, motion, posing, etc.. Some small built-in asymmetry can contribute to this, but it does virtually nothing, by itself.

We don't say symmetrical we say mirrored.

Any Poser character topology that's not mirrored left to right your hear people making morphs ,maps ,weights etc etc complain about it.

There's one Poser character you hear them complain about a lot. can't think of her name.

but any DAZ Poser character that has a prayer to survive past tomorrow. the topology best be mirrored and centered.

or that character is doomed to failure.

poorly designed overall topogrpahy that ignores human anatomy ?

you know I've seen some very realist looking characters in games. they didn't use topology they used maps.

No human face or body is perfectly symmetrical. Even those that seem to be, if you mirror one side to the other the asymmetry becomes pretty apparent. Doing the same to both halves will wind up looking like two different people. Whenever you hear professional sculptors talking about realism in their sculpts they'll always tell you to break the symmetry, but it has to be subtle. That article above is a bit absurd because all it did was distort the example faces so they wind up looking like they're missing a chromosome. But if you mirror those example faces you'll see even those are not symmetrical faces.

Mesh symmetry is not the same as aesthetic symmetry. A model has to have perfectly symmetrical topology in order to mirror morphs and rigging. The asymmetry is added in after all of that to increase the believability. The Poser figure most commonly sited for asymmetrical topology is the G2 female - mostly Sydney, but she shares the same mesh with all the other G2 girls. The asymmetry in the mesh is in the chest above the breasts and along the ribs. The story is that It was done deliberately to mark the meshes to prevent piracy - moronic way to go about it imo, since it does little more than deter people from creating add-on content and breaks the model for certain features of the current Poser, like mirroring morphs.

For what ever reason piracy ,heroin ,crack etc etc

PG2 mesh is just wrong.

and if there worried about piracy . what they never thought we could just delete one side and mirror the mesh in any modeling app ?

here's one of the biggest @$# h#!^ pirates I've ever seen. https://www.cgtrader.com/xiaoxunyue2014 when I brought it to every ones attention they removed the wireframe .jpgs. not the store thou.

it's DAZ Genesis with a polycount of 200,000+ so he had a customer having problems with rigs. gee what a surprises for a 200,000+ polycount. I told the customer where he could get the 20,000 polycount for free.

any time I've pointed out a DAZ mesh at turbo they remove it.

I've never seen a Poser character plagiarized at main App's 3D stores. but Roxie is the only mesh they would be interested in anyways. They wouldn't want PG2 mesh anyways.

"No human face or body is perfectly symmetrical. Even those that seem to be, if you mirror one side to the other the asymmetry becomes pretty apparent. Doing the same to both halves will wind up looking like two different people. Whenever you hear professional sculptors talking about realism in their sculpts they'll always tell you to break the symmetry, but it has to be subtle. That article above is a bit absurd because all it did was distort the example faces so they wind up looking like they're missing a chromosome. But if you mirror those example faces you'll see even those are not symmetrical faces."

I am not Debating wether perfect left/right symmetry is possible in a real life Human Face . I was specifically responding to this oft repeated and frankly silly notion that such perfect symmetry is somehow a major contributing factor to poser renders looking Fake.

Indeed it is those other gleaming Shortcomings I mentioned, that scream "computer Character" That are dead give aways before the observer ever gets to the point of examining left right symmetry

"poorly designed overall topogrpahy that ignores human anatomy ? you know I've seen some very realist looking characters in games. they didn't use topology they used maps".

Indeed sir..and what were those Game Characters doing?? Moving about at what ?... 24fps??

Even in this exciting era of the the unreal and other "Real Time" engines ,there are still many optimizations that game models have that would be unacceptable to a user base that creates primarily still images of most semi or fully nude females.

2010 game mesh http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=74780

2011 game mesh http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=86771

2012 game mesh http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99126

Not that I think these old meshes are the best game meshes but they can hold there own against Poser.

I just think no matter the topology .Poser alt to go all out with maps.