AmbientShade posted at 11:20AM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310314

Question for content creators: If you had a choice between jcms or a fully weightmapped figure with extra bones which would you prefer?

JCMs by all means - think of fitting clothes!

You can easily copy a JCM over into the clothing. Extra bones would make the fitting process much more complex, and also clutter up the hierarchy window even more..

Peter

AmbientShade posted at 4:58AM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310314

Question for content creators: If you had a choice between jcms or a fully weightmapped figure with extra bones which would you prefer?

Weightmapped with jcms - not extra bones rigging clothing with extra bones is a pain - The fitting room can baulk on them too

Some extra bones are essential for shoulders and spines, but they transfer well in the fitting room.

AmbientShade posted at 9:11AM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310325

Some extra bones are essential for shoulders and spines, but they transfer well in the fitting room.

Are you talking about extra bones that are inserted into the natural rigging order or Ghost bones ?

Personally I'm not a fan of ghost bones on the body and prefer JCMs - but don't care about ghost bones in the head that are used for expressions.

Bones without actual geometry attached but still part of the rigging due to being driven by other body parts. I don't really consider them ghost bones but some might.

AmbientShade posted at 11:47AM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310345

Bones without actual geometry attached but still part of the rigging due to being driven by other body parts. I don't really consider them ghost bones but some might.

Quite a few figures have used them over the years to drive butts etc - even seen extra thighs on figures to drive the movement for skirts, still not my favourite solution but they have their pros and cons I suppose.

Hadn't realised that we still need them with weightmapping and JCMs, oh well you know best.

I like to leave jcms as a last resort, when the weight maps and the mesh have been pushed to their limits. In more professional studio rigs there's often hundreds of bones in a single figure. In poser rigging - aside from the face, there really aren't that many.

But that's what experimenting with different setups is for, to see which works best and is easiest to add clothing to. Personally I hate having to deal with jcms when working with conforming clothing, since the clothing itself needs its own jcms. But that's why I asked the question here, to see what others think.

AmbientShade posted at 12:11PM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310351

I like to leave jcms as a last resort, when the weight maps and the mesh have been pushed to their limits. In more professional studio rigs there's often hundreds of bones in a single figure. In poser rigging - aside from the face, there really aren't that many.

But that's what experimenting with different setups is for, to see which works best and is easiest to add clothing to. Personally I hate having to deal with jcms when working with conforming clothing, since the clothing itself needs its own jcms. But that's why I asked the question here, to see what others think.

It would be nice if the weightmaps could do all the work, sadly there are usually a few stubborn rotations and bends that just don't work.

Quite a few members of the forums hate JCMs and are very vocal about weightmaps doing all the work, so it's wise to ask ;)

Should the copy morphs feature not solve the problem with JCMs on clothes?

-Timberwolf- posted at 10:00PM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310371

Should the copy morphs feature not solve the problem with JCMs on clothes?

More often than not, no. Copy morphs works better with fbms and such.

for bot n place holder :)

AmbientShade posted at 8:43AM Sun, 23 July 2017 - #4310392

-Timberwolf- posted at 10:00PM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310371

Should the copy morphs feature not solve the problem with JCMs on clothes?

More often than not, no. Copy morphs works better with fbms and such.

O.k. We have something else, that needs to be fixed urgently in Poser. JCMs are useless, when they are not coppied to conforming clothes and figures without JCMs are useless. Poser without figures are... no, I will stop here. ;)

They are copied to the clothes. The problem is they don't do that great of a job a lot of the time, and they can't because the figure geometry and the clothing geometry is different, so they usually (and by usually I mean pretty much always) require additional editing once in the clothing.

Two of the real good things put into Poser were the morph brush and the dependency editor, for mostly that reason. Quick fix of poke throughs and add those to a master parameter.

AmbientShade posted at 12:13PM Mon, 24 July 2017 - #4310392

-Timberwolf- posted at 10:00PM Fri, 21 July 2017 - #4310371

Should the copy morphs feature not solve the problem with JCMs on clothes?

More often than not, no. Copy morphs works better with fbms and such.

Actually, I think CopyMorphs will copy jcms as long as the dials aren't hidden.

Shade, are you going to make the figures merchants resources?

No, but their base textures and rigging will be, and they'll have rigged body suits and/or basic clothing that will be MRs.

A new figure would be pointless without Poser having the tech to make that new figure bend and work better, like the Genesis figures in daz. I'm not saying we need Daz's version of how figures work, but poser needs to move forwards and allowing future figures to work more realistically needs a better ground to build them upon. I would also like to see an overhaul of the animation in Poser. The software is called "POSER" surely posing and animation are at the core of the old beast, so come on and bring it. And one of my old gripes is the half arsed arrival of Superfly, I say half arsed as I hated when they gave us this new renderer and wow look at all these shaders.... er what shaders.... oh we have to figure those out for ourselves..... What do I mean by this... it would have been nice to have a few metal, wood ,concrete, skin, cloth, water etc superfly shaders for us to use. And lastly I would LOVE to have dual monitor support, I mean that when I stretch poser across both monitors it locks to both, not the floating annoyance it is currently, damn thing keeps shrinking and moving every time I open the damn thing. I don't want to keep altering this.

Poser users hate DAZ compares, but there will allways be DAZ compares as long as DAZ's figure technology is in the front. So in order to silence DAZ compares, Poser has to become the leading software again by having better figures. What I miss desperatley on Poser figures are a geo graft feature like DS has, which means, conforming seamlessley meshes to a parent mesh. Stop that "break mesh into pieces when grouping" crazyness. And to continiousley repeat myself: Better joint bending and more effort in a good JCM system. @AmbientShade: Poser11 SR7 , now copies all morphs with the Menue->Figure->Copy Morphs from... command, including the hidden morphs. :-)

Shedofjoy has just reminded me, getting a native Linux version of Poser would allow us to get off the MS/Apple treadmill if we wanted to. (apologies for going OT)

I would like for a figure to have Poses you can dial in like some of the animal figures do such as sit, lay down, cross arms..ect...

What do I want? Billions & zillion & jillions of useful & unique morfs (unique as in none of that BigBoobs value -1 = TinyTitties value -1 bo-shett thas so common). Asymmetry fer everting. Squishy morfs (such as ass/ thigh flattenin' fer sittin' on a rigid seat, or... you know. Boobs :D ). Logical morf groupings; head morfs on head, divided by sculptin' & expression categories w/ left/ right subgroups fer the aforementioned asymmetry. Big-assed 1000 pg manual w/ animated gif previews of all the gajillion morfs. Add my vote fer JCMs. Scalable limbs (they wrecked that w/ V4 & I don' use newer Daz or any Poser figures). Hair transparency patches; brows, pits, crotch, chin/ chest on yr male fig. Dunno if is possible in a single fig, but I'd like to see dual-stage joint limits (i.e; "normal" limits + "contortionist" or "under strain" limits). Since ya mentioned yr aimin' fer Poser use, @ least basic Face Room compatibility, & figure scaling that don' bork the hands on the Fashion Model setting. Shoulder blades. Rib cage scaling. Near-surface bone detail morfs (joints, pelvis, ribcage, spine, etc). And everthin' everbody else said.

Well... ya did ask :D

wolf359 posted at 12:58PM Mon, 31 July 2017 - #4311068

Poser has to become the leading software again by having better figures.

SM does not share your opinion they clearly believe that the quality of the figures does not matter.

And the notion that some amazing third party figure will increase poser usage is wishful thinking at best

Particularly if it requires users to buy the latest version of poser just to access the new figure.

My new name for you is NaySayGuy.

The goal is to provide Poser users a set of figures that give more flexibility than what is currently available to them in regards to Poser's most recent capabilities without having to jump through hoops and learn import scripts and conversion utilities to do so. If that results in Poser gaining more users then that's great but that's not the main focus. If nobody was using Poser anymore then content wouldn't still be selling, vendors wouldn't still be making content for it, these forums and the SM forums would be completely silent and the software likely would have been sold off to some other developer by now. Clearly that's not the case.

Boni posted at 12:21PM Mon, 31 July 2017 - #4310072

I would like to see figures with a neutral/generic starting point. A shape that is decent (out of the box) and can be easily transformed. Anatomically realistic faces.

Just out of curiosity, would you still be against a figure if in it's default state it was as ugly as Alyson2, but had more morphs that looked like Anastasia? I always wondered if Anastasia could have caught on more if Blackhearted had made more morphs for her than the two he did.

It's been a while since I posted (decades?) but I really am hoping to see this come to fruition and am therefore motivated to do so.

I'll tell you that there are really only two things for most poser users to adopt the figures and use them: Realistic bending and an aesthetically pleasing default shape. In that order and really that's it. Everything on top of that is gravy. Seriously looking at the issue, how many times do both of those things happen? From the looks of what you have done already you've definitely got the well made figures part done. Based on everything else I've seen, the realistic bending is likely as well. Those two factors would make a terrific start and get everyone on board for what comes after.

Let's face it- an awful lot of poser/daz users never move the dials one iota when doing a render. A large number of people don't have the imagination to see past a default shape they perceive as unattractive. Although it's better than before, realistic bending is still hard to come by.

Lastly, we really need another native male poser figure. For reasons that have been in the forums many, many times, people prefer female figures. For people who work in more illustrative areas, that really is a disadvantage. I like Dusk and Dawn just fine, and I didn't think Rex and Roxie were so bad. Seeing what you have coming along already is a real addition to the toolbox however. Very exciting!

Morphs and clothing will be necessary, but if the default figures are good, it will happen.

I spent a year teaching myself modeling and figure making so I could make a couple of animals I needed for a image. It's tough! So, your work towards this end is appreciated. Looking forward to see Venus and Orion in the runtime.

I have to agree with Wolf359, It does seam that SM are not taking this seriously, This is a shame and they need to wake up and pull their trousers up.

shedofjoy posted at 12:41PM Tue, 01 August 2017 - #4311117

I have to agree with Wolf359, It does seam that SM are not taking this seriously, This is a shame and they need to wake up and pull their trousers up.

OMG: how stubborn can a company be? Is that realy their opinion? If yes, SM realy needs to wake up.

Ok, guys ... let's be constructive about these figures and not trash SM. This is your first warning. I know it's just a comment, but it can get out of hand. Let's help Ambientshade out here, ok? He's got a great couple of figures here. I've seen what they can do and you won't be disappointed, IMHO.

Boni posted at 10:33PM Tue, 01 August 2017 - #4311129

Ok, guys ... let's be constructive about these figures and not trash SM. This is your first warning. I know it's just a comment, but it can get out of hand. Let's help Ambientshade out here, ok? He's got a great couple of figures here. I've seen what they can do and you won't be disappointed, IMHO.

Seconded. Yes they are great figures. Will NOT be disappointed. Nope. Nope.

wolf359 posted at 10:27AM Wed, 02 August 2017 - #4311215

As a Genesis Content creator myself ,the feeling of liberation that comes from not pitifully begging into a vacuum for others to create for you, is quite satisfying.

There are people of all skill levels in the Poser community. Some people are quite satisfied with creating renders and Poser gives them the opportunity to create 3D art that they may have otherwise been unable to do. Other people like creating their own stuff.

Content creation isn't easy ... and the tools to create it can sometimes be a significant investment. To downplay the former group of people as being "pitiful beggers" makes it seem like it's easy, and everyone has the means and the ability to do it. That, of course, is not true.

Hi AmbientShade.

You ask "any feature?"

There is one major issue I would ask to "any" creator and it is as simple as it is complicated.

HAVE it PROPERLY beta tested. NOT by vendors who have other things on their minds, but by people that are technically in the know.

Too often we see figures released with technical problems. And they start at the base: The obj file. It is a waist of time to start rigging, or even to start creating morphs, before the obj file has been turned upside down and inside out by people that live and sleep with obj files.

Mostly, some f us get the figures too late, too deep in the process. And then we report what we see, but it is too late. Too much work has been invested in rigging and morphs to change/repair the obj.

Tja, and then you have some of the results we have seen lately.

Beta testing should start as from the first vertices. It is simply impossible for a creator to see it all.

Best regards, Tony

This is not constructive and software bashing. Plain and simple, I have deleted specific posts and informed the members of the infraction.

Please continue to help AmbientShade with his excellent figures.

Hmm thinking about it, a sim dummy.

Same figure as to rigging and proportions etc, minimal detail.

EG. Nipples. Trying to cloth sim over those drives up sim time... For something that is hidden....

A simple dummy version to use, sim with and swap our for the hero figure....

Deecey posted at 1:36PM Thu, 03 August 2017 - #4311179

Boni posted at 10:33PM Tue, 01 August 2017 - #4311129

Ok, guys ... let's be constructive about these figures and not trash SM. This is your first warning. I know it's just a comment, but it can get out of hand. Let's help Ambientshade out here, ok? He's got a great couple of figures here. I've seen what they can do and you won't be disappointed, IMHO.

Seconded. Yes they are great figures. Will NOT be disappointed. Nope. Nope.

how about a youtube of her bending or at least some .jpg bends

@RorrKonn - you can see a couple new shots of venus at my tumblr page, linked in my signature. I'll be posting a lot more of them soon, both here and at SM forums, I just have some things I gotta finish up with the riggging.

@Khai - I intend on having things like nipples smooth by default. It's just easier to texture features like that when you can see where to aim the brush.

Do they work in pro 14 ? How much $$$ are they ?

RorrKonn posted at 9:26PM Thu, 03 August 2017 - #4311351

Do they work in pro 14 ? How much $$$ are they ?

I haven't determined a price point yet, I'll think more on that when they're closer to being finished. This thread was mainly intended to get an idea of what people would like to see in Poser figures, not specifically about mine.

They're Poser 11 only. I was going to make them Poser 10 compatible and I may still try to figure out some way of doing that but HD morphing doesn't work in Poser 10.

Poser 11 and 11 pro are on sale until the 10th tho, Can upgrade pretty cheap.

AmbientShade posted at 12:43AM Fri, 04 August 2017 - #4311358

RorrKonn posted at 9:26PM Thu, 03 August 2017 - #4311351

Do they work in pro 14 ? How much $$$ are they ?

I haven't determined a price point yet, I'll think more on that when they're closer to being finished. This thread was mainly intended to get an idea of what people would like to see in Poser figures, not specifically about mine.

They're Poser 11 only. I was going to make them Poser 10 compatible and I may still try to figure out some way of doing that but HD morphing doesn't work in Poser 10.

Poser 11 and 11 pro are on sale until the 10th tho, Can upgrade pretty cheap.

We just watched the movie King Arthur: Legend of the Sword .wicked movie.

If I get 11 or not I can still load your meshes in C4D.

Not saying or suggesting what you should do. I wouldn't bother with backwards compatibility on a advanced characters. My game characters probably be simple enough for Poser 1. If there not dishing out for a upgrade then there probably not your customers anyways.

infinity10 posted at 8:06PM Sat, 05 August 2017 - #4310066

I would go for true Japanese Anime Style figures such as those seen in the MikuMikuDance universe, with the same animation capability, if not better.

Totally agree. You would think that they would have tried to really put a lot into the creation of a good anime character with a good supply of anime style clothing, hair and skin textures. Until then I'll just keep morphing the mess out of my Aiko 3, 4,5,6 characters lol. I personally think some awesome over the top anime clothing would be a breath of fresh air and a break what we normally with 3D clothing available for Poser.

I have to say, I've finally seen both Orion and Venus and I'm impressed as hell. Good job so far, Shade. I hope you're planning to have different ethnic morphs and body types for these figures. I need variety, and preferably something more than just a white girl or guy with a different skin tone. I'm not asking, nor do I want the morphs to be built in. I'm willing to shell out for it.

Thanks, glad you like them so far.

Yes there will be plenty of morphs. I intend on doing add-on characters and a lot of that will include various ethnicities and age ranges.

How about some renders :)

Renders would be very nice :)

Shane ... perhaps some renders ... even untextured would pique some more interest. We are a visually driven group here.

Ah, some fine renders at your tumbler page :) Also thanks for the youtube developer vids.

-Timberwolf- posted at 6:39PM Sat, 23 September 2017 - #4310516

Two of the real good things put into Poser were the morph brush and the dependency editor, for mostly that reason. Quick fix of poke throughs and add those to a master parameter.

But when you think of how well known and longstanding the poke through issue is, it always seemed strange to see it persist version after version. I don't know why it isn't fixed at render time, because then the meshes themselves would not need be adjusted manually. It seems like a z-sort could be used to check if polygons of a mesh that is mostly behind another item are intersecting and then those areas just would not be visible. I mean clothing goes over the figure, and it should be easy to determine where the clothing ends. Then the program could force the z order of poly rendering so that skin was never rendered in front of the clothing.
I suggested a type of hybrid clothing several versions ago. I can't recall the specifics, but it was similar to conforming clothing in that it was still a rigged figure, but similar to dynamic clothing in that the distance from the figure was maintained per frame. But these are the types of longstanding issues that led to my skipping the last release. I know the problems I have with Poser for years running, and instead of seeing them fixed/addressed, even if in novel ways, there are always a few new bullet points that add to the program's complexity yet the old problems still persist. Why can't they make a T-shape cage to project the soft body map onto existing figures for example? Why is it so hard to reuse texture maps/weighting etc. across different topologies but which do have similar shapes?

moogal posted at 11:17AM Sun, 24 September 2017 - #4314718

-Timberwolf- posted at 6:39PM Sat, 23 September 2017 - #4310516

Two of the real good things put into Poser were the morph brush and the dependency editor, for mostly that reason. Quick fix of poke throughs and add those to a master parameter.

But when you think of how well known and longstanding the poke through issue is, it always seemed strange to see it persist version after version. I don't know why it isn't fixed at render time, because then the meshes themselves would not need be adjusted manually. It seems like a z-sort could be used to check if polygons of a mesh that is mostly behind another item are intersecting and then those areas just would not be visible. I mean clothing goes over the figure, and it should be easy to determine where the clothing ends. Then the program could force the z order of poly rendering so that skin was never rendered in front of the clothing.
I suggested a type of hybrid clothing several versions ago. I can't recall the specifics, but it was similar to conforming clothing in that it was still a rigged figure, but similar to dynamic clothing in that the distance from the figure was maintained per frame. But these are the types of longstanding issues that led to my skipping the last release. I know the problems I have with Poser for years running, and instead of seeing them fixed/addressed, even if in novel ways, there are always a few new bullet points that add to the program's complexity yet the old problems still persist. Why can't they make a T-shape cage to project the soft body map onto existing figures for example? Why is it so hard to reuse texture maps/weighting etc. across different topologies but which do have similar shapes?

I just tried to be constructive and positive here. I am for sure not the right person to to be that Poser-defender. ;-)

I imagine there is some issue with worrying about copy right and licensing on some of those fixes. It would seem Poser would have to have a sort of open source license figure rig with those features including an optional use of a set of generic fitting magnets that could be easily adapted to different characters. That kind of goes back to licensing worries and problems for different figures. The fitting room fixes some poke through issues, but depending on the poses that can change.

On a side note, the new Blender eevee engine looks really nice and could replace ray trace preview renders as well as be used for very quick animation test renders of high quality. It's amazingly fast. It's still in development but progress on it is going quickly.

I wish that Smith Micro and Daz3D could combine their talents so that G8 (or whatever) is built right into Poser. Let's face it, Poser allows greater control over many different parameters that Daz Studio doesn't match, but Daz3D make far superior figures. Combine the two in one package, throw in a decent particles system, and you'd have one killer app for 2018.