I've been working on Alaskan Sport Fish, as a collection to use in my art. Modeling is done in Carrara, and I've learned a ton. I extrude an outline, the pull and add vertex points as needed to create one side of the salmon, then I duplicate and flip to make the other. The only problem I'm having there is that I have a little ridge or valley where they meet. Also I divided the model by splitting chunks like body 1, body 2, etc. for Poser bones. The texture map is off on this one, a quick test. Is it a good idea to split the model and name the parts in Carrara or keep it one piece for Poser? And I am having trouble adding bones to the fins. I could use some advice. I plan to make morph targets on my final for creation of trout, Grayling, N. Pike, etc. Thanks, Rob.

I don't know much about modelling but I did read that if you export it as an obj then run it through UVmapper it can fix the problem, try using EditToolsFix Seams, that should sort it out

oh yeah forgot to say, it's looking good :)

well,i do know that in truespace that when you "mirror" the said vertexs,you must make really sure that the polys that are going to meet are perfectly flat on that axis,if not,then when you mirror or dublicate the said object it will not meet correctly,so after you finish with the first half of the model you need to go to the side views and look to see that they do in fact reach the same axis,if not drag them back to the place where your plane began and if it distorts the rest of the polys then you will need to re-move them to what your intent is for your fishy...my next message will hope illustrate this

hope this helps,i dilibertly made the mistake but i hope this helps with my explination

Attached Link: http://www.toucan.co.jp/indexE.html

they would know better about the seams in the Carrara forum here. my experience at trying to do a carp model (until I found a 3ds model ready-made at the attached link) was that I'd get a seam if the end-point of a cross-section was a corner-point, or a bezier-point with incorrect slope and inflection. splitting the groups of polygons into body-parts is easier in carrara IMVHO (due to orthogonal views), although I haven't tried Poser Pro Pak. however, it may not be necessary to split the body into sections, as it can form a continuous bending s-shape without use of sections. the main problem I found with the fins on the carp I downloaded was that they were one-sided planes, so I had to add just enough thickness to them to get them to display and behave correctly, while still retaining the texture map. The other problem is that the model also has a somewhat sharp edge along the top, so the fix would be to smooth it down in the vertex modeller, or start over with a continuous cross-section. adding bones to the fins may not be necessary if you use the directional wave deformer in Poser to mimic the fin action, provided they are all separate groups. fish fins move very minimally, excepting the pectorals, and are not analogous to arms/legs IMVHO.

Wow, thanks everyone for your input. I had some time today to play around some more and I tried again to combine the two halves. I unfilled the polygon face between and joined the two again. Although it is still a bit sharp, it is better. Also, I didn't seportate the body parts, just pulled it into Poser Pro Pack as one, adjusted the UV and here it is rendered in Bryce with some friends. I plan to make better maps and bump maps as well. What about bump maps in Bryce? How is that done?

And the second from above.