I've been experimenting with animation techniques in Poser. I'm just not eager to learn a whole new 3D program and deal with the bugs and anomolies that come with importing/exporting Poser figures (and this hobby is expensive enough as-is). Unfortunately, 'lock actor' on arms, hands, torso, and a whole host of other body parts usually does nothing. So forget it. If you need a limb to remain stationary while the rest of the figure moves (usually, hands/arms), then what you want to do is this. It automates the process somewhat, which is the goal, because, you could simply pose the figure exactly how you want every single frame... but that's not ideal. Pose your figure's arms (or whatever you want) using sphere props from the library and the "Point At" option for the corresponding body part. Normally, a sphere at the elbow (enable 'point at' for shoulder body part), and another at the hand (enable 'point at' for hand body part) will keep an arm in place. It actually creates a nice effect, because the arm doesn't really LOCK, it still moves, only not so extremely. See, you'll be moving the rest of the figure, but those props will always be in the same place, and therefore, the body parts you set to them will always be pointing in that direction. I'm still perfecting the technique. Sometimes it still doesn't produce the desired effect, but usually it does. Some trial and error should get an animation working the way you want it to. Once you finally hit on the 'sweet spots' for your animation, IF they exist, you can start ignoring the hands or whatever and focus on other areas of the animation. This can be applied to any body part on any figure, but you can't always predict what part of the part will do the pointing (huh?). Like, for the head, the top of the head (the scalp) usually does the pointing, not the face. Just an example. Hope this helps. Also, unchecking "bend" on certain body parts may eliminate unwanted motion, but it introduces a whole new type of problem. ;)

Hmmmmm... the collision detection has me intrigued, however. I'm wondering too!

Uh, is anyone else unimpressed with the screenshots at Curious Labs? I'm in no serious hurry to pick up Poser 5...

Saying "send us a copy..." is like saying "please rewind that DVD before returning it".

When I first started, I figured "Yikes, I gotta pose the clothing ON TOP of the person?!" Obviously, that would easily take forever, or drive a person insane. Which ever comes first. Even back when I had extremely little knowledge of the program, the possibilities blew my mind. At the time, I was actually trying to model people in my trusty Bryce 3D. You can imagine how huge a blessing it was to discover a program like Poser. Read up and practice. Here's some very basic things that will help improve your renders. - Play with the lighting! Both spot and infinite. - Play with the camera settings. It'll even give you some idea of how real-life lenses affect photographs and movies. - Get some textures and bump maps on those figures! - All the tutorials will mention this, but remember: Click and drag is your enemy! Use the dials when posing and moving figures. They are much more precise and won't "explode" the figure as easily as clicking and dragging will. I'm still having nightmares from seeing elbows and knees bend into freakishly unnatural positions... shivers 0_o'

I must not have the right codec; the movie played, but had all kinds of distortion. Don't think I've installed DIVX 5 yet... but anyways... Very imaginative, I like how images fade in and you slowly kind of pick up what it is (or at least that was MY experience). The most worth-while project I've seen yet. Bravo! Please post the link of the finished movie when you got it!

I think a ship might fit the space nicely (although it looks pretty without)... However, if you throw the ship in, a big deal for me would be "how do I give a sense of scale?" The ship will need to be relatively small so it doesn't crowd the space, BUT you don't want to give a false sense of scale. Is the ship as big as the planet? Is there a way to cheat the scale without anyone noticing? etc. etc. You don't want anyone thinking its about a little mini space ship that will fly into that person's nose. That said, I do think a station orbiting the planet, or some type of space craft would make the image better if implemented well. As is, looks fine. =)

Attached Link: http://www.3d-cc.com/DL_pages/MS05.html

Here, I'll make it easier! Click the link, and about the middle of the page you'll find MORPH MANAGER. Props to Jaqui for the location hint above. I use Morph Manager myself, but I forgot where I got it. Very easy to learn. You can also use it to delete morphs from CR2s that you aren't gonna use to reduce file sizes (helpful when all your posers are Michael 2 or Vicky 2 based). The face poses are a good idea too. That's how DAZ formats their "character paks".

Sheesh... looks like a tough one. Rather than keeping the colors the same, you may want to darken/lighten the gen prop color as needed. It looks like a few more shades one way or the other may do ya! By the way, I've had success using the gen prop with the DAZ3D Light Map for Victoria (standard res). Body parts and prop were set to pure white and the textures I downloaded with the prop seemed to match with no problem. The prop is easier to work with, but I'd probably recommend investing your time in the Femina package. Once you get all the remapping done, the gens look seemless. However, I had to tweak the nipple maps and bumps to get the right look (specifically, I used an extremely low-res map for nipples rather than a hi-res, otherwise they don't match the body texture). I think they ruined the Femina by including those nipple remaps. Enough venting... ;) Hope that helps.

Yes, I was just gonna suggest using the magnets to make folds and such in those clothes. In fact, you may want to avoid scaling down all together and just make them "flat" using magnets. It may produce more a more realistic look. Like, for example, put a shirt on the floor and "cave-in" the chest and sleeves using magnets...

If you set the material color to "black" on the hair and make the eyes darker, you might find that it all fits together much better. I like it! I really do!

Attached Link: http://rm2k.phantomrpg.com/

I'm playing around with a program called RPG Maker 2K. Before you get too excited, RM2K is VERY VERY basic. We're talking Nintendo-esque graphics... BUT you can make custom graphics for EVERYTHING. I am working on a project with this program and have managed to improve the graphics somewhat. I'm doing all the location/set graphics in Bryce and the characters are designed and rendered in Poser, then converted to a usable format for RM2K. So you CAN use Poser graphics with this, but it's strictly for RPG games, and you're in for a lot of work with converting the images and learning the different features of the engine, etc. In the end, it still looks like an old console game, but you don't have to program anything. You're probably looking for something 3D/FPS related... the RM2K community may be able to help with finding something. I know Quake and SWAT 3 use 3DS models, so you may want to look into learning that program if you want to do game models.

Hey?! I was promised extreme violence... and that is NOT extreme violence. Anyways, looks excellent. I think I checked out an earlier test animation by you that also looked fantastic. Aren't you rendering in Cinema or something? I like the poster as well... hehehe that's the kinda stuff they put up at my work. Those bastards!

It looks like you've got a different lens (specifically, a shorter lens) setting on the Aux camera, but that shouldn't the position of the OBJ like that. Very odd indeed...

@ VirtualSite Vicky or Stephanie? Why not have Vicky AND Stephanie... in little tank-tops perhaps? It literally screams "Hot 20"! Think bigger guys! Think bigger! By the way, I LOVE the shadows.