Crikey!

EClark1894 posted at 9:26AM Tue, 10 March 2020 - #4382877

Actually, I don't have a real problem with the icons. although I think putting little arrow heads on the tips to indicate which direction they are supposed to control would be nice.

What, you mean like the original aptly-themed 'hands' that were 'pointing' in various directions, and also happened to mimic perfecly, the main camera controls?

You know, the ones I'm complaining about them removing for no reason whatsoever? This is the sort of crap you get when large corporations with dollar signs for irises, get their hands on bespoke-crafted software. They actualy hadn't a freaking clue what they were doing, and it shows. The only consollation I find in this, is that interview with Tim Choate. He seems like a nice guy who is genuinely fond of Poser, and I'm hoping that will lead to Bondware fixing the crap SM managed to put in there!

Those new SM icons look as if they fired the seasoned artist, and hired the teaboy. Those original interface icons were created by a guy who knows a thing or two about bespoke interfaces, and what you need to understand, Clarkie, is that both Poser and Bryce have survived years of mismanagement and neglect largely because of the feel those controls give to Poser and Bryce. Start messing with that stuff and you're left with DAZ Studio, and I wouldn't wish that interface experience on my worst enemy!

Face it, it looks like crap, is out of place, was completely and utterly pointless, and should not have had precious time and resources spent on doing it, period!

Sounds interesting, Jonny, and sounds about the right time, but I don't recall ever downloading one with that name, that's a new one on me!

Seems a bit odd though, don't you think, that they are no longer there? it's not as if he's removed his website, so it seems odd he would keep a website up that is effectively useless without the guides it promotes. Makes me wonder if it has something to do with a file-host going down or someting like that.

@Dowjonsie - Yes, it is possible as can be seen here (I think this is what you're refering to).

This is SASHA-16 with the whole figure selected, then you go EASYPOSING>TORSO>Hip Rotate X. You will notice that unlike other figures, everything above and below the hip stays vertical while the hip is rotated, very nice! Cannot tell you how it is being achieved as I've only recently installed her and she appears to have been created by some figure wizard who can do clever things with the Poser dials, but it does at least show that it is possible, which is not surprising actually since Poser is very powerful animation-wise under the hood (it's just got an atrociously clunky animation interface).

But those links that work appear to be introductions to the various parts of the manual, but nothing like the actual manual I remember downloading (unless perhaps I'm thinking of something else). I remember it as having very detailed, well written descriptions of each node along with examples of each.

Let's hope Super-Sleuth Boni unearths a copy through her detective work!

Cheers mate, I even learnt a bit about Python files in that reply

Thanks a lot, Snarly, but which directory should I put the .py file into, and which directory for the .pyc file?

Aye, and it makes me wonder if they even gave him a chance to back it all up before removing it. I've been reading some of the links on here provided on the VSS webpage, so not all is lost regards VSS, but I remember what you mean, he had his very own forum space on there.

Cheers RP, but it's the same situation on the current web, cause clicking on the book fails.

Maybe snooping around the docks would make a good animaton, so did you ever produce any Poser animations based on your Port Maintenance theme, Ant?

Reason I ask is there's a Poser Animation Thread on here a bit further down the page, and to be perfectly honest, I am shocked at how hard it is to find stuff on YouTube to list there. I love the way you have stuck with Dork and have not been blinded by the bling of evolution. Genuinely always brings a smile to my face when I see Dork and Posette stuff, so if you do have any animations, please post them in that thread. It's obvious from your gallery that you like to create a story with your images, so even if you have not produced any animations on this theme you have going, I honestly think you should!

Looking at it closely it sort of looks as if the words are placed on a decal, so it might have something to do with transparency and ray bounces. Have you tried increasing the transparency rays in your render settings?

Hmmm, sounds like we need a sleuth then, so who's the resident Super-Sleuth of the Poser forum?

This is serious stuff, peeps, cause The Missing Poser Manual has taken its own name far too literally, and has actually gone missing. It's even more serious for me, cause it's gone missing just when I need it for cross-referencing material nodes!

Thanks very much, Snarly, it's very much appreciated. I did download EZMat, but haven't installed it yet due to playing with VSS. I will of course do so but looking at the folder structure it looks like a material generator as well. I think at this point, I had better explain something so that hopefully neither yourself or Ted think I'm on drugs.

There are two aspects to me wanting the specific things I am wanting. One aspect is to simply learn from the node structures, and the other is to make life easier through having a way to synch any node network I come up with, across all skin zones of the figure. This is why I have interest in VSS and EZMat, but no interest in using them in the way they were designed to be used. That's why MATHelper is spot-on, cause from the screenshots it appears to be purely a tool for synchronising and managing materials and material zones. The end goal, is that I learn whatever I can from your's and Ted's skin nodes, so that once I have that knowledge, I can just build my own node networks and use MATHelper to synch them across the figure to make life easier.

That's the best way I can describe it. My apologies though, to those who have been reading this thread. I can imagine it all seems a bit chaotic. Unfortunately, I never did keep up with what was going on with any of these tools in the past, which is why I'm so bloody clueless about them today. The only exposure I had to Poser Python scripts were the built in ones, which of course always worked cause they were already installed, so I never had to deal with any of the peculiarities of third party install until now.

Anyway, I hope that explains some of the scatter-brained craziness you must all be seeing from me

For the Male, I use M4 with the male equivalent of those morph packs (Obviously Excluding Natural Breast Morphs).

I suppose V4 with the following morph packages is my goto figure, and is really all I have ever needed:

• V4 Morphs++ (By DAZ)
• V4 Muscle Morphs (By DAZ)
• V4 Natural Breast Morphs (By Posermatic)

So that is my goto figure (strictly when injected with those morph packs), which I use to get me in the right ballpark of any look and body type I'm after. I then use the Poser Morph Brush to make any facial and joint adjustments I need, while the figure is posed.