Hi, I have just returned from a business trip to japan and it seems that while they are very much in realistic rendering of human characters for their anime stuff (some of it is actually pretty sick) over there the predominent software they use for it is a program called "Shades". They even sell "character packages" in regular software outlets that can be used with that software. However, from looking at the description on the box "Shades" seems to be more of a general-purpose 3D modeling software with not much "poser like" functionality. Can someone from that region maybe shed some more light on that... Does Shades have feature that put it into competition with Poser? Thanks, Guido

I don't think shade is the same kind of poser, that's a modeling softwear like lightwave, 3DS max, and ofcouse , it can pose a model, but shade have much more then poser.

Attached Link: http://www.creative-3d.net/Shade.cfm

Shade http://www.creative-3d.net/Shade.cfm

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=HobbyHopper

Most 3D modeling packages can do what Poser does. But Poser has 3 advantages: - It is is less expensive. - The setup of a character is easier. - There are lots of Freestuff and MP products for it. Maybe Shade has some of those vantages too.

BTW we have some Shade artists at Renderosity. Look at the gallery of HobbyHopper. He has more pictures on his homepage.

I really like that sketching plug-in the reviewer at creative-3d was using to create organic shapes. Anyone know if that plug-in is available for other packages? Tilandra

Attached Link: http://www.critical-depth.com/Reviews/

I remember there being a very detailed review of Shade at critical depth, might want to try and find it, it had lots of screenshots and elaborated quite a bit. I downloaded the demo but never got around to trying it out. I know that many of our regular Poser contributors from the Japanese community use Shade for clothes modelling.

Attached Link: http://www.alice.org

The sketching plug-in sounds like a pro version of teddy. Teddy is a mesh generator which works in the same way. It is a part of a 3D-package called alice from the Carnegie Mellon University an produces OBJ-meshes. Alice can be downloaded from the link above, It's free.