Bobasaur, Yeah, your also an After Effects-guy. I've got to say that After Effects has been an indispensable part of doing the strip, even though they're all still images. I've never used any of the particle plugs for Poser, maybe they are for PC and I'm on a Mac. LW has really serious particles but serious particles take me a long time to wrangle. Most of that smoke and haze pictured above is all from AE, a plug called Particular. What a really quick, fun, easy way to make particles. Maybe not completely on topic but I thought I'd throw that in.

Kevin, That explains a couple of things. I kept upgrading LW. But even when I had 6.5 it just kept crashing my machine. And I'm in deep with OSX now on a G5 so there's no going back. Yes, that material switching would be a pain and is the one very good thing about the greenbriar plugs. It's not a total re-rig but as you said, then you'd be in LW animating and not Poser. Currently I'm working in LW with a character built in LW so it works fine and yes, Lighting and the Graph Editor, woohoo!! As for this comic strip, its way better to be in Poser and tweak the motions. The IK works really comfortably in Poser. I can understand your reluctance to go to the bottom of another learning curve. I have re-rigged my LW character (and re-modeled) three times from the bottom up. And really, I just want to be animating scenes. The drum animation looked good. Good sync. Also had a look at the Fashion animation, very nice. I really liked the illustrations and type animation. So, Kevin. I've only met one person with the last name Flach and that was Bob Flach in Dallas. I saw your Fashion animation was in Ft. Worth. So, I had to ask any relations named Bob? I know astronomical odds but miracles happen.

Yes, I am using Pro Pack, was never able to get the Poser2LW plug-in to work. Eventually, I bought the Greenbriar plug-ins.
While they have worked well getting objects into LW with their materials intact, there has been a fair amount of tweaking to do on weight maps and adjusting some joint setups, limits etc.

I want to be clear that this is not a meticulous appraisal of the Greenbriar products. My time budget for Liquid Stealth is small so when the characters needed more work I just stuck to rendering them in Poser. I hope someday to take the time to work out the kinks so that any Poser character will be workable in LW.

So, here's my work flow.

First I should mention this all started as an improvisation. In LW , I wandered around Dystopia scouting cool locations. Then, Liquid Halo came out as did the Drone Trooper and I thought wouldn't it be cool if...

So, from that beginning began to emerge this story. I roughed out an outline of the plot. As I fine tune the narration, I break it down into individual captions for each panel.

I sketch out what I'm expecting in photoshop or if I have a LW render of the location I'll stick that in and draw on top of that.
Then I adjust text or images until I think it's working.

I render the bkg in LW first. Pose the characters in Poser and render them in Poser. So, my camara match move happens in there.

re: surfaces
The Greenbriar plugs do a good job of transporting those things over. One thing that is a bit of a pain is that I find "Reflection" set to 100% on many materials so that has to be adjusted.
Otherwise, all maps are set to "normal". I'm suprised your setting maps to "add" unless your material is set to black.

Thanks for your interest. I'm interested in your response, or hearing how your pipeline is working. Like, how did you get the Poser2LW plug to work, or does it?

"Sounds like deci6el has a real problem with purist, if they even exsist" Dude, I'm right here. No need to talk about me in the third person. I'm being up front about what it is. And purists exist. Then LawnDart and I made sure between each other that we weren't slamming "purists". Then I stated my reasons why even I (me) would want to be one (a purist). Yes, the Pros knows there's no one shot render. My comment was not meant to provoke but to clearly state that the work I was promoting contained parts of Poser. This was meant as a courtesy for those in the Poser forum who only want to deal with Poser issues. I hope I have answered your question.

LOL! I know, with every key stroke I tread carefully about what absolutes I'm about to espouse (?). Eventually I just have to give in to being who I am and take the hit if I deserve one. BTW, buddy of mine who flies gliders asked me to help him name his new plane and I suggested Lawn Dart. I think he actually used it for a while. Anyway, your nick always makes me think of that.

Your response is a wise one, re: no one button solution the narrow mind is the one that says, "you are weak and worthless if you have to leave "The App". But that's what Extreme-ism is all about. However, I do understand the lure of wanting to develop one's talents so that it can be said, "I did all that on an Amiga and only used one finger to type!" Bad analogy. The job of animating really urges one to automate as much as possible because frame x frame is cost prohibitive or just too tiresome. Luckily, illustration begs me to cheat as much as possible, as does my producer. Thanks Joe. cheers, Don

Whoa, Mec4D, you ask for "go easy" perhaps you could reply with same. 1. I opened with "Thanks" 2. Quickly followed with admitting I didn't know what stage you were in but implied you might be taking it further. 3. said it was a good beginning and repeated at end. Don't see anything "hard" in that. I did make a comment about the black levels but it was without emotion. I did consider the soft shadows on the other couches but stand by my comment. There is credibility in considering what it will look like in motion. As this is a still picture I could only judge how the still looks. I could go on but I don't want to offend. I'm used to people shouting out their opinions in dailies on shows like The Mummy so I don't really think of opinions as hurtful. And I stand by the "Thanks" for letting me get a look at the new Poser 6. good luck with it.

Thanks for the look at P6 and its new features. Don't know how far you've taken or will take this. It seems it has given you a good beginning but take a look at the black levels of the chairs and table to the right, the lack of such blacks makes the creature look like it doesn't fit. In fact he almost dissappears because of it. I can see that you don't have any cast shadows on the floor yet so maybe you plan to do more. As I said, it looks like it gives you a good beginning.

As with all this stuff, it sounds very time intensive to set up and would be incredibly time consuming rendering. There is the point at which I go "Wow" at the Vue images because I immediately relate doing that picture in any of the other apps I have and think, how long did this take, all those leaves!!! My god, Man, the hours!!! And granted, if it were done in Bryce it would be too heavy to sit through. Vue is Vue because it is set-up to make that happen. I assume there's some built in instancing so that the tree geometry doesn't bog down. Even Bryce trees use that same technique, still. I know CzarneyRobert has some long render times but he is recreating Poland on a molecular level so, go figure. I'm glad to hear CL is co-operating with someone because their bridge to LW never really worked for me but I heard that was code was outsourced to a third party. I have no idea if that has improved with P5 or P6 as I am still in PPP.

lol, thanks ever so. It's slow goin' and I'm working my way toward dialogue. cheers

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=deci6el

the syncing cameras sounds great. 'cause if you are gonna use people in one app to put in the enviroment of another that's the part that hurts the most right now. I've got my own quirky character in LW, which is great, no importing. But for all the more realistic stuff, I've got tons of Poser merchandise, that I just can't feasibly re-model. I use the Greenbriar plug-ins to import into LW. So, right now,are any of you guys importing Poser stuff into Vue. And is it easy and supported? How does it work? Sorry, for so many questions, but you've been so helpful so far. Take your time. I gotta get some breakfast.

I went to the link that jc posted. Downloaded the movie, and breezed through the specs. Without trying to sound like a plant in an info-mercial, War2, I now know a little more than the nothing I knew about Vue. How are they "targeting different segments" ? I saw their website mentioned lots of other 3D apps, what's the strategy of using Vue and something else?

Thanks, very much. Sadly, I am already quite commited to LW by about two years after having come through several other 3D packages (I'm sure you know them). That said, the Vue renders have really been outstanding. I don't think I could put myself at the bottom of another learning curve just as I'm trying to boost my output. But you guys go ahead and keep blowing my socks off. Peace between Forums. don

Birddie; "I'm never sure what I want to do in a scene though. "

It's less about the destination and more about the journey. Sorry, that sounds so "dime store philosophy" but you are really in a great place.
There you are with a virtual world at your fingertips and you can do what ever YOU want. Any painter who has stared at a blank canvas knows how daunting that can be, (for me all that emptiness is very scary) but when you realize it's just about your choice it's really Freedom. Don't like what you chose? Choose again. And keep asking yourself "What do I want?" It's your Universe.

This is sounding kind of preachy over-the-top but you're in a perfectly normal place now, I'm just trying to nudge you into the next space that comes after it. cheers