Hi Everybody! I have been saving my pennies and am getting ready to purchase one of the DAZ skeletons and I was hoping that some of you might be able to help me get the right one for my needs. DAZ sells two human skeletons, one with an articulate vertebrae (AV) and one without. The one with an AV is nearly two and half times the cost of the one without. I want to create scenes like someting from the old Jason and the Argonaughts movie (animated skeletons running around attacking people; good, clean fun). My question is which one is going to pose better. My concern is the one without an AV will have a strange bend in the spine where the upper and lower back meet. I am also concerned about the one with an AV. Will it take regular Mike poses or am I going to have to adjust each and every vertabrae every time it moves? If you have either of these skeletons, I'd love to hear from you. If you have both, that's even better. If you know of another good skeleton, I'd be interested in hearing about that as well. Thanks in advance! Jay

Get the cheaper one. The expensive one comes apart and is more geared towards anatomy etc..

To heck with human skeletons ... get Anton Kiesel's dragon skeleton. Beautiful piece of work. Much cheaper, and just as fun!

Pardon me, but what is a skeleton except a bunch of bones? Poser has free skeletons, in the Additional Figures Character Library. They are waiting for you to put them to work. (I used a firelight ligthing setup, so they look a little redder than normal!) Ron

The only problem with the P4 skels is that they have no teeth (detail).

Hmmmm, I wonder what the P4 skeleton would look like with a texture? going to check on that.

John Malis has a textured skeleton warrior over at his site, Posergamers. It has teeth.

I haven't taken a close look at it yet, so the teeth might simply be a combination of textures and bump maps, but unless you're performing emergency dental surgery, it shouldn't make any difference.

I'd bet that with a decent texture and a bump map the p4 skeletons would do what you need. The Daz skeletons are geared towards serious anatomy studies; probably far more than you need. And, from my last viewing of Jason and the Argonauts, more detailed! Unfortunately I don't know where you could find such textures/bumps... anyone?

after looking at the prices of the 2 skeletons at Daz, I would give the P4 skeleton some serious consideration!

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I'm looking into the skeleton at Posergamers. Its fine if the teeth are just a texture and bump map. Free is always nice. Thanks again! Jay P.S. Little Dragon, I have Anton Kissel's Dragon skeleton and you're right, it is great!

It shouldn't be hard to run UV Mapper on the skeletons, then get a texture map. Then you could create a texture. I did that with the Poser Mannequin. (Of course I got the UV map from 3DCC who is running a contest based on the mannequin.) Ron

That's not a bad idea, Ron. I am a little intimidated by UV mapper and haven't used it, yet. I've downloaded the skeleton from Posergamers and am going to try that first. If not I might give the UV mapper a try. Thanks again! Jay

I only used UV mapper once, for Mike's cowboy shirt. I had to fiddle a few times to get the job done. I'm sure others could help you with UV Mapper. I do believe the author has a good tutorial on his site? Is it Steve Cox?

hmmm if teeth are important...even the AV skeleton is sorta lacking,it's better than the included poser skeletons but it'll still need a "good" tex to look decent,the best bones from daz are found in the "morphing skull" it's really high rez,much more so than even the AV skeleton,it has all it's teeth,is very detailed and reasonably priced. i use the morph skull attached to the AV skel "body" for the most detailed skeleton,i wish the AV "body" was as detailed.you could just as easily attach it to the default poser skeletons at least for images where the focus is on the skull it would look decent enough if the body pose wasn't extreme

Isn't there a free skull somewhere you could put on the Poser Skeleton? Or perhaps borrow the teeth out of the Dork?

Yes, 3D Cafe has a couple of free skulls in its Anatomy section. One is low-res. The other (hellskul.zip) is nicely detailed, and comes with a texture, although it needs remapping. Neither is poseable, however.

Rodzilla - I have downloaded the Posergamer skeleton and plan to try him out tonight. In case he doesn't work out, I am curious about the AV skeleton. Does the articulate vertabrae make it more difficult to pose? Are you happy with the AV skeleton? Would it work for "Jason and the Argonaugts" type scenes? Thanks again! Jay

yes the vertabrae make it more difficult to pose...most figures have just a few "segments" in the torso,usually it's hips,abdomen,chest,neck or something to that effect.the AV skel has all the vertabrae,plus all the discs between them...all are pose-able!so while the AV skel will take poses,and most of it's parts will go where they are supposed too,the spine usually stays straight. you will have to adjust it manually for each pose and this is no small task,it has many parts!now that i think of it...i may see if i can group or parent all the bits into a few separate groups to make things a bit easier i do think the AV is the best looking skeleton,it really only seems lacking when paired up with the morphing skull,which is just a fantastic model.both were probably built from digital scans and are pretty accurate. i think the difference between them is likely that the full skeleton was "optimized" quite a bit to get the poly count down to a manageable level for a full figure,you unavoidably lose detail that way. heh heh.. i have a pz3 stored on my HD with the AV skeleton holding a scimitar in one hand and a dirty looking round sheild in the other...it's all ready to go i've just never gotten around to the animating part :)

Hey, everyone, meet my new friend, Yorick!

He's a free morphing skull prop I found at Royloo's Poser Fun Stuffs.

Yorick isn't as versatile as the DAZ morphing skull (and his xyz axes seem to be a bit messed up), but he has a wonderful personality, and he claims to be a distant relative of Murray. As you can see, he still has all of his teeth.

Fix the axis problem, and he'd look great parented to one of the existing skeletons.

ok heh heh...let's do bone pictures...why does that sound dirty?:)anyway this is the AV skeleton "wearing" the morphing skull..all from daz of course.you can see the spine,all them bit's are movable..the vertabrae and the discs...you can decide for yourself if you wanna try to animate this guy!

I'm not spending $195 for a skeleton, unless it's a blood relative. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life animating all of those vertabrae and discs, either. The Poser skeleton, with Malis' textures and gear, are adequate for all of my Harryhausen needs. The DAZ skull does look nice, but I'm a cheapskate; I'll stick with Yorick here for closeups. He comes with a great texture and bump map, and after I fix the axis problem, I can create my own morphs. Maybe you can try the texture and bump maps on yours.

ummm Little Dragon...it's not any sort of competition or anything,i was just showing what the thing looked like.your message almost gives me the impression you feel you were somehow insulted??if that's the case,it sure wasn't my intention! and no,you're right,there are no maps on that "skinny" guy in the pic :)

No, not insulted, or competing, for that matter. Just commenting. If it sounds otherwise, I apologize for any misunderstanding.

Attached Link: http://members.fortunecity.com/royloo/misc.htm

Here is a direct link to the page that has the skull. I had to fumble for a few minutes to find it. Sometimes you just can't tell when you look at someone's category descriptions. Ron

Attached Link: http://store.daz3d.com/store/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=ZP1&Product_Code=ps_ac137b&Category

Wow, thanks for all the help, everyone! I am leaning towards the less expensive of the two DAZ skeletons (the one without AV). I tried out the Posergamer skeleton. Its based on the P4 skeleton. One thing that I discovered is that the P4 skeleton does pose well, despite not having an articulate vertabrae. I expect that the nonAV DAZ skeleton should pose similiarly. John really did the best job possible with the P4 skeleton, but its just not realistic enough for me, especially standing beside Michael or Victoria. The AV skeleton does look great, but the AV is overkill for what I need and I don't want to mess with posing each vertabrae. Well that's where I am for now. Thanks again! Jay PS As I was looking into this I came across another skull, its from Michael's Conforming Halloween Head. I thought that I would post a link just as a reference. =)

Hey, rodzilla ... could you post a similar pic of the AV skull? Just for comparison purposes. The images at the DAZ Store are somewhat lacking. :) I also noticed that the store description of the regular Skeleton says that it is compatible with Poser's Walk Designer, whereas the description of the AV Skeleton doesn't mention anything. Does this mean the AV Skeleton won't work with the Walk Designer?

no prob...i'm sure you see why their pics a little lacking,for the price of the thing!the morph skull is WAAAAY better for what around 30-40 bucks! i've never tried the av with the walk designer[i don't use it for anything really,but that's another story]it will take animated poses tho,i've had it walking and running successfully,but like i said before the spine stays straight.poser in general just skips it,i think because all the bits aren't labeled as anything it recognizes[vertabrae/disc 1 through whatever]

I still haven't made up my mind as to how to make my fantasy skeleton. Here's a render I made of the P4 skeleton with a quick texture I made in photoshop with the skull from Royloo's site. Hope you enjoy it! Jay

Some excellent links! Thanks to everyone! Baz

rodzilla - Were could you group/parent the AV skeleton's spine for easyer posing? = )