Hi everyone, I just joined Renderosity. I am overwhelmed to say the least. Could someone please direct me to some tutorials to get me started?

I would really appreciate any help any of you could give.

Thank you

Rob S.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tutorial.ez

Hi Sharen,

and thank you for the nice welcome... I see the tutorial links now. I am actually trying to do a medieval pose of a woman with long blonde hair with clothing from the 12th century.

Is it possible to shape the facial features?

Rob S

Yes, just click on the girls head and to the right you will see dials that pertain to the head, just move the dials to the right or left with your mouse and you will adjust the facial features. Hope this helps. The dials sometimes hide behind your library, so close the library on your right by clicking the middle dial for the library. Sharen

Oh that is awesome, thank you Sharen. Do I need a special piece of software to do the long hair in the 12th century style? Like the hair of Sophie Marceau in the movie Braveheart, that's what I am going for but blonde. Rob S.

Hair is not possible to make from scratch in Poser, you will need a 3D modelling software for that. For the styles I think you are looking for, check out the different hairs by Neftis offered in the marketplace. There are some "classic" styles there that I think would be suitable.

Okay I am looking now. And of course I will probably need 3D modeling software for the period clothing, is that correct? I do appreciate your help Sharen, thank you very much. This is great. I was completey overwhelmed after I signed up. There's so much on this website I didn't know where to start LOL Rob S.

For clothing you're probably better off modifying existing clothing using texture, bump and trasparency maps which can be created using a graphics application like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. Sounds complicated doesn't it? :o) Don't worry it's pretty easy to learn. Basically, texture maps add colour and pattern, bump maps add a pseudo 3d texture so they'll add depth to lace or brocade for instance. Trans maps allow you to make parts of an object translucent or disappear completely which is useful for altering the shape of a garment. It's too complex to explain fully here but there are plenty of good tutorials out there. The link above is a good place to start then try a search in this forum for tutorials, be specific if you know what you're looking for there will be MASSES of results! If you really can't find what you're looking for ask here, someone will point you in the right direction, but try to be specific, it's difficult to answer generalised questions. And do try to read the manual, I know it's a drag and you just want to get on and do it but it's really not that bad a reference. Most of what you need to know is in there somewhere! Modelling is a whole different ballgame and needs a LOT of study and practise, I've tried to do some and found it very difficult but maybe that's just me! I'm sure you'll find the 2d route described above a lot easier to begin with though! Finally you've hit apon the best resource in the world for Poser right here! This place is packed with experts most of whom will bend over backwards to help! Baz

Thank you so much Baz, I am going to go through every resoruce I can with a fine tooth comb, that I assure you :-) I will read the manual, practice and everything. I am a newbie, and I can't really draw well to be honest and I am hoping that the computer might be an outlet for me. I have some experience with photoshop however, I will study your above suggestion and do my best. On a completely different subject, has anyone here tried to do Star wars aliens, and clothing? I am just in awe of it all, sorry... Rob S.

I am going to assume that you only have the standard Poser 4 software and figures, and that you haven't yet purchased anything else. (If I'm wrong and you have the millennium figures from DAZ, please correct me.) Clothing: If you are going with free stuff only.... Search for "Galadriel dress" (by someone named James) and "medieval" (usually mispelled). This should bring you a nice gown with pointy sleeves (the dickens to get them right, but effective), and a couple of textures for the P4 Formal you already have. There is a dress called "Uthena's dress" with lots of textures. This has a square-cut neckline, and is very nice and adaptable. I've seen a hennin or two, but most of them are from 13-1500. Ghastley has a nun's habit which has the right sort of whimple for 1100... check his site if you are going this route. For modest cost.... Symphony remapped the P4 formal and made a whole bunch of textures. Traveler made a "Garb Pack 1" which also includes hair, and Symphony remapped and textured that as well. I have both sets and they were easy to work with. There is a "Period Dress" at DAZ which is very flexible. PhilC's site is worth checking out. He is doing Elizabethan clothing right now... when you are ready to make your own clothes, he has a CD showing you how to do it. Please note that when you dress a figure, you can make parts of the clothing invisible, so you can use a bodice or sleeves from one figure and a skirt from another by overlaying them. Hair is trickier. You have "long conforming curls" already. There is a transmap for them (I don't remember the link off the top of my head, but Little_Dragon will be along any hour to provide information from his amazingly extensive database). I have used 2 instances of this hair layered on top of each other and extended down to the knees at different lengths to get the look I needed. Play with it. The Japanese modelers have done wonderful work. Check out DigitalBabes (see links at right) for Kozaburo's hair; one of those styles might be adaptable, depending upon how you are making your figure. If you buy the Costume CD from DAZ (the current price is incredibly reduced, probably because of the impending release of Poser 5), you get slightly better standard figures (more morph targets), more clothing, and a half-dozen new hair styles. The woman's medieval dress is also very close to what was worn. Anyway, these are some options. Let us know if you are going with the millenium figures because our recommendations will be different. Also, do you need props? There are some buildings and sets available, some riding tack, too many weapons, and a fair amount of everyday stuff such as looms and butter churns, but you'll have to tell us what you are looking for! If you go through the first tutorial in the manual, you'll get your character dressed and walking around, lighted and rendered. This will give you the basic understanding of how stuff works, and you can build on that foundation. Oh, and welcome to the communities! You'll find a half-dozen different Forums relating to Poser, each with its own "feel" and emphasis, yet all have helpful people willing to point you to the right tutorial or free stuff section or market. Carolly

Oh Carolly, thank you thank you thank you. Everyone thank you very much. I have been up all night in awe of the artwork here and the tools, and how kind and helpful everyone's been. I am going to become a regular, because I want so much to be good at this grins But thank you very much I will be referring to this info repeatedly Carolly, and Sharen and Baz... you've all helped me immensely, in just a short amount of time. Thank you :-)Now I have to go put these suggestions to work :-) I will be sure to post my first attempt at this figure so I can get some further pointers. I am as newbie as it gets tho, so don't expect picasso LOL Thanks again, Rob S.

Welcome to Renderosity. I hope you enjoy your stay. I'm the big, bad dragon you've been warned about. Some people around here are of the opinion that I know where everything is. Don't listen to them. I only know where 50% of the stuff is. 67%, tops.

For free, excellent period clothing, visit Serge Marck's PoserFashion. I don't think he has anything 12th-century, but it's worth a look.

If you want the transmap for the long, conforming curls, as hauksdottir suggested, here's a link:
Allerleirauh's transcurls

Yes, there are Star Wars characters, clothes, and props for Poser. Not many of the aliens have been done yet, aside from Darth Maul, Yoda, Aurra Sing, a Jawa, a couple of Jar-Jars, and a Tusken Raider. Available human characters include Darth Vader, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, little Anakin (Episode 1), Mara Jade, various Stormtroopers, and Qui-Gon Jinn. Lots of droids from the original trilogy: R2-D2, R5-D4, C-3PO, IG-88, etc. One prolific artist in particular has produced over two dozen lightsabers since Episode 2 was released.

The following links will lead you to most of these items. Some are found here in Renderosity's Free Stuff; the others are at other sites:

The Red Skull's Dungeon : hasdrubal's Tusken Raider
Posergamers : Mara Jade, Anakin, C-3PO, all by Jon Malis
3D Poser.com : Numerous characters (look in the Sci-Fi section)
Free Stuff : Bespin Leia and Hoth Leia, by Dal
Free Stuff : Slave-garb Leia, by Kevin
Free Stuff : ElectricAardvark's version of Aurra Sing
Free Stuff : _dodger's lightsaber collection

Attached Link: http://205.122.23.229/ronknights/

Thank you Little Dragon and thank you Ron Knights, I am bookmarking all these sites and will make good use of every piece of information. Thank you for your help. The tutorials are great Ron, thank you. I have started reading the manual as Baz suggested, and hey I'm making progress I have a sound grasp on the lighting techniques grins Thank you so much everyone. I am on cloud 9, thanks to you all and know that over time I will need all the help I can get :-) Your assistance is always appreciated. Rob S.

Poserstyle also gave away a very nice medieval dress a while back. don't know if it is still available. sorry no URL to hand, but I am sure someone will post it.

Poserstyle.com still has a very nice medieval dress for free with many textures also for free, but it is for the Mil figure Vicky-- her lo-res version is still available at Daz for around $9 and is a very easy way to start in to the Millenium figures. There are plenty of free textures for her available here in our FS, and free hair, etc. Also check runtimedna.com for more mil freebies. There are some amazing Vickie textures there. Welcome to our madhouse. Emily

Oh, just remembered, for a P4 medieval dress, do a search in our FS for the Uthena dress. There are lots of textures for it and it is lovely. Emily

Thank you Emily,

I will go to Poserstyle.com immediately.

Can you explain to me what Daz is? and do I need it just starting out?

Also, can anyone recommend a tutorial for making custom faces?

And, I have another question, sorry... I wasn't able to come on yesterday and so have a few questions written down so I wouldn't forget. hehehe

Are there any free hair programs out there that allow you to make your own hair styles? I would buy the ones in the marketplace but I haven't even made my first real figure yet. I am still going through the manual like Baz suggested LOL

And what is the best way to give a female figure wider hips? All the ones I have seen have slender hips and this character I am going to make should have wider hips. She should have bigger breasts as well but umm, well I am not sure if anyone here would help me with that LOL Sorry.

Thank you to everyone in advance :-)

Rob S.

Rob, Actually, there are morphs to give the female figure bigger breasts... dozens if not hundreds of them. There are also morphs to make the hips, stomach, and buttocks shaplier, too. When you click on a body part, you should see a stack of dials to the right. Each dial does a specific thing. For the face you might tweak for a heart shape, narrow nose, mouth into an "o", and blink left eye. The numbers above the dials are much more precise. You can use negative numbers, too! The opposite of a frown helps make a smile better. Play with the dials until you get a feel for them. Some have major effects, but you can always restore. Some of the dials will scale the body part, or rotate it, or translate it in space. These are all useful for making your figure unique or getting it into a certain pose. Now, back to morphs (this digression is serving a purpose). When you load a morph target, or apply a character morph, you add more dials to the stack. You might have a hypothetical character called "Martha" and when installed and loaded you'll notice that she is the standard figure with another dial labeled Martha set at 1.0 which you can then fade back to 0.0 depending upon how much of Martha's attributes you want. Alternatively, the character might have several new dials for face shape and body shape. You can also find individual morphs at Traveler's site www.morphworld30.com (I think this is right) so you can add specific dials. Say that you want long fingernails or elf ears or even no ears at all for an alien... the morphs are out there, or you can make your own. As for hair? Go to DigitalBabes (link at right) and check out Kozaburo's tutorials for making hair. Have fun!

Thank you, very much. I am using the normal version of Poser 4, and have the nude woman 3 that is included in the program. Am I correct in my understanding that I morph this character or download something else to use to morph? I'm sorry for such a dumb question... I am getting the hang of things thanks to all your help :-) Will just take time, this program is too complicated and intricate to get the hang of it right away LOL Rob S.

I thought of more questions LOL I tried to unzip some files I found in free stuff but unsure of where to put them. Can someone also direct me to where I can find out what folders to put these free stuff files into? Also, I tried to look at veryvickywhite.pz3 file and I get "this file has a newer version and will try to read anyway" and then I get a "out of memory error," which is really strange because I have 256 MB sdram on my computer. Do I need to update Poser 4 and if so where can I find the update? Rob S.

Vicki does not come with Poser 4-- she was the first of the Millenium figure that daz3d.com put out. The lo-res cersion of her was the one I was recommending for a toe in the water if you wanted to buy her. The fact that she does not come with pser 4 and you probably don't have her object in file in Geometries, is why you are getting strange and meaningless error messages. You don't need her to begin posing, Posette Nude woman is the way most people started and there are many good textures and hairs and tons of free clothing out there for her. All Koz hair was designed for her first. Check out HappyWorldLand-- go to the right of your Renderosity page and look for Web Ring top 15, it will be there. Tons of interesting textures for the Poser 4 nude woman. Very good textures. There are lots other places but this is probably the most in one spot and that makes it easy. Emily

Thank you Emily, much much appreciated. is Daz3D a program for Poser? or is it another program entirely? Rob S.

Go to the site. daz3d.com. They make most of the base advanced [high polygon]models that you will see in the galleries-- Victoria, Michael, Stephanie, Various Dragons, a Millenium Baby, some preteens and preschoolers-- all these come extra to the program. Victoria was developed first by Zygote, but that's history and I don't do history anymore.:) One of Ron Knights tutorials is on the various figures, I highly recommend them they will get you up to speed quickly and ease the complications of who is who and what goes with what. Your program is Poser 4, you said. Posette, the default female character, is, I think, in Figures/Characters-Female. The clothing is in Figures/Clothing-female. There are, as I've said, lots of hair and textures for these figures and their clothing, less for the male than the female. Almost all of it free. The millenium figures are more costly and more realistic, but there is plenty of free stuff out there for them too. You still have to buy the initial figures from Daz. And often the initial clothing packs as well. Emily

Thank you Emily, I am on my way to daz3d.com now. I don't mind buying a few things :-) I like the Victoria and Stephanie models, and the Mike one's are realistic but far less sexy LOL Thank again, Rob S.

Ah, then before you buy expensive textures for Vicki or Steph, check out our FS and runtimedna.com free stuff , there were several recent and gorgeous free textures uploaded there. And our FS has over 10 superb textures for Vicki and Stephanie, and a few for Mike. Eowyn did a recent Stephanie texture that's a knockout! Then you have more money to buy more clothes!:) Emily

don't forget Brando you have to "pay" for all the advice by posting pictures so we can see how you're getting on :) Good luck & welcome to the world of poser addiction ;) Rob

Hi everyone, Thank you for the advice Emily and for the pictures Ron. Only problem is when I download freestuff not yet sure where to put everything, because some of my files are not where the manual says they should be and I have not touched them or moved them. That is a bit confusing. However I am starting to see a pattern to the file folders in Poser 4. So, I think I can place them correctly. And I would gladly post a picture only problem is I have not figured out how to make a jpeg file from a pz3 file LOL I'm so embarrassed, I've only had the program for 4 days though LOL It's the first 3D program I have really tried, tho I do have 3D studio max, I could never get it to work because I had no tutorials or manuals for it. Thank you everyone, I appreciate your help and will post something soon when I have something to post and figure out how to make the file a jpg LOL Rob S.

Rob, render to larger window and save. You will also be given the oportunity to save the render as a TIFF. Do so, take it into any paint prog that makes jpegs, and there ya go. Make sure you check anti-alias before rendering, and you might want to render a little bit bigger than your final project to add a bit more detail. I render at about 1500 to 2500 pixels, but I do have a fair amount of memory and scratch disk-- several gig of scratch in fact. I shrink my pictures in about two to three stages and use unsharp mask at least the first and maybe the last time. Some masters of rendering-- ByteMeOk Comes to mind-- render much higher. Also check the focus on your camera-- it's the first dial when you have the camera selected. Over 78 is a good number. I render at 105 to 120, but I don't do wide shots. I act like I've done all this much-- this is from memory. I have a brand new luscious computer for two weeks and no monitor to go with it. Very frustrating.:( Emily Ok, you can show us your stuff now. Trust us, we'll be kind.

Oh okay so I render first and then save in TIFF format is that correct? I just have a simple Posette pose done with a blue background. Nothing extravagant, heck looks like crap compared to the Art gallery. It's nothing really. I will post it though. I will feel stupid and inept, but I will post it LOL Rob S.

don't feel stupid, you've just started with poser, trust me it takes a while to get close to what the experts have done, some have been using poser since version1, post it to the beginners gallery or here so you don't get shouted at. Rob

I always render and save in PhotoShop PSD format. Then I can do any postwork I want.

Hi again everyone, First thank you for your encouragement and thank you Ron for the tip about PSD. I am slowly getting acquainted with the program. I know where to put files now, getting better at posing. Starting to learn about props, textures and background and even lighting and camera position. Thanks everyone, I will try and post my first render by tomorrow. :-)

Hello everyone, I am back after a long few weeks of work and travel.

I screwed up my first attempt at a pose for a blonde posette. It's beyond fixable. So, I decided to get the Vicki 2 and Mike 2 textures so i can make more realistic poses.

I have the dress for this girl, and know where to get the air. But where do I get Vicki 2 and Mike 2? I did a search for them on the Poser products and I just got textures that go over Vicki 2 and Mike 2.

Can anyone direct me to the right place? Thank you.

Oh and PS- I promise when I'm done I will post it here ;-)

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/

Thank you :-) much appreciated. I was under the impression we could buy Vicki and Mike at the Renderosity Marketplace :-)

I have Mike 2.0 and Vicki 2.0. but for some reason when I loaded them into Poser they don't show up. For instance, I open Poser 4 and go to open Vicki 2.0, but the files for her are not there. I minimize the program and click through the hard drive to the exact folder where Vicki should be and there she is, right there. But, it doesn't appear when I try to open her files in the program itself. I tried to import, tried opening. Just not sure why she won't appear in the files when the program is in use. Has anyone had this happen? if so how do you fix it LOL Thank you in advance Rob aka Brando7778

Please stop using the Nudity and Violence selections on your posts.