Just a theoretical question ;) Say, I was working on a character for Vik2 with some friend - - - - there are MAT's, lights, faces etc. I have Poser4, not ProPack. 1. Do we include both RSR's and PNG's for thumbnails? 2. I read somewhere that PPP creates the png's from the rsr's - is that true? If yes, then, the package only has to include the rsr's, right? 3. Are normal PNG's made with photoshop good? I mean, the thumbs for PPP shouldn't be some SPECIAL kind of png's? :/ (I searched past threads but didn't get the FINAL TRUTH about this :)

Hi, Yes, Propack creates png's from the rsr's so you'll only need to include the rsr. You can use Yarp's P3dO Explorer (in Freestuff-Poser-Utilities) to create the rsr's for you. Yes, you can use Photoshop or any paint program that can save to png format to create thumbs for PPP. I usually render a 98x98 image in Poser and save it as the png thumbnail. Hope this helps, Lourdes

Thank you Lourdes, that helps a lot :) Paula

Lourdesidea of rendering a small thumbnail in Poser itself is a particularly good one as the PNG has an alpha (transparency)channel saved with it, which will give that cool "shadow" look to the thumbnail that a Photoshop picture wont get automatically. I do mine at 91x91 though. B)

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There was a thread a few days ago that discussed a few methods to make better thumbnails both inside & outside Poser. The link will take you to the thread. Here's an exerpt from my post in the thread, but several others followed with additional techniques that they found better for their needs. Personally I use my method a lot, as I can do it on the fly within Poser, but then I haven't spent the time learning the specialized utilities mentioned by the others. Exerpt follows: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With Poser4, I used to make better quality, rendered thumbnails (rsr previews) with the old trick of rendering onto background, moving the figure aside, and saving to a library with just the rendered image on the background visible in the thumbnail. With Pro Pak, I lost that capability - the background is always blank in the png's that are saved with library items. - lots of other features more than made up for it, so I didn't sweat it too much. ........................ I started Poser, loaded a lo-poly figure, and put a transmapped hair on it, Framed & rendered the hair, & saved to a JPG. Next I loaded a simple one-sided square prop (comes with poser) placed it BETWEEN the camera and the figure, applied the rendered JPG to the square as a texture, re-selected the hair item, and saved it to the hair library. Worked like a charm! (see picture) After a few tries, I got it down to 2-5 minutes per item. I'm tickled by this, as it can be done IN POSER, with just a couple minutes effort. The main thing to remember, for anyone who tries this is to ALWAYS RE-SELECT ITEM YOU WANT TO SAVE IN THE LIBRARY BEFORE SAVING! - otherwise you'll find you've actually saved the textured square, or a camera setting or something. I hope someone else finds this useful. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For a commercial item You'd probably want to do some post work, or composite text onto the JPG before applying to the square. Be sure to read the other methods in the thread, as they might be better for you.

Thanks guys!

Ahh Routhledge...you are correct...91x91...

Leather-guy, why do you go through all that trouble if you rendered it in Propack and you can save it as png with the alpha channel intact? If you render it in a new window 91x91 then save it as png, it will have that transparent background with the shadow. I also use Propack and this was a real quick way of making thumbs for the 'transparent' items....under a minute to render and save. But then, your method makes an interesting looking thumbnail. Please don't take my comment as negative....it wasn't meant to be =)

Lourdes

Heh, heh..... That's something I LOVE about this forum! So many people working on the same problems for themselves, 80% of the time a workaround or fix for a problem, someone else has worked it out as simply, and more elegantly! LOL Actually, I suddenly see this is what Routledge was saying, but this time I caught the idea clearly! I had read that PNG's are a standard graphic format, but since I had never seen it really used it in any software before ProPak, I didn't "know" it (I unconsciously equated it with RSR's as being unique to poser thumbnails)! Weird, the mental blocks our minds play with! G Thanks for the clarity, lourdes & Routledge! Well stated.

Sorry for the typo Routledge... Leather-guy...your way is good too...for instance, one may want the render against a certain color background and have a nice shadow behind that square or some other shape...it would work nice for that effect....plus the thumbnail jumps out at you too....makes your stuff stand out amongst the clutter in the library. Lourdes