I think ugly is a strong word, Its neutral, maybe a little boring, but only really the forum part i think, but then again its the forum, what people write should be whats interesting :D, the rest have pictures, the gallery and marketplace is full of them. The prime forum is still there and you can still filter Poser items objects in the marketplace, none of that have been changed. Not saying that it couldn't be better, but the new design doesn't seem to have made any changes to these things. Its take a few more clicks to get to the forums that are not listed as a sub category, which I think is fine, as long as these are not the "main" ones. But for this to be of any use those shown in the list have to be the main forums, otherwise this functionality is just clutter.

Also before Renderosity started to change the site there were a lot of commercials everywhere, which added a lot of color, but members complained about those as well so they got removed as far as I know, which I personally think is good as a forum shouldn't be filled with stuff like that. Its fine on the front page, gallery etc.

So im not really sure what you would like to see in regards to the website being more appealing to the artistic people, do you just mean the grey and black theme that you don't like or do you have examples of forums/marketplaces that are much better at this? Daz3d is the most obvious site to compare to, but I don't really see them doing a better job at this. They just went with a white background :D

Maybe its because I don't really understand what you mean with "no draw for artistic people"? Do you have any examples of marketplaces/forums that does this well? I would like to see them, just so I know what you mean or what you are aiming for.

Making full body suits as you have done Rokket is quite good with dynamic cloth I think and just constrain all the vertices, so it simulate very fast :D

The wind force is located the place you wrote, I just remembered wrong :D

Amplitude

This is strength of the wind, so if you crank that up it will be like a storm.

Turbulence

This causes chaos to the wind so to speak, so instead of being a steady stream, like you might have in a wind tunnel running at constant speed. Turbulence as I understand it, will cause the wind strength to be uneven the higher the value the more chaotic the wind will be. Exactly how it works im not sure, but I assume that its like a -/+ change to amplitude over a give period of time

Spread angle

Is the area of effect, this is as far as I know actually a cone shape even though it just looks like 2 lines. So every cloth item within the spread angle will be affected. . Range

Is sort of like spread angle except the distance from the wind force to the cloth item. So the range and spread angle need to cover the cloth items for them to be affected.

Im not sure if there is a build in falloff so the wind is strongest at the source and weakest at the maximum range or whether its a constant strength based on amplitude. But guess that is fairly easy to test.that I used in the image, I cant really remember, it was just some random values until i thought it look as i wanted. The settings you have to use is highly depended on the cloth and the air damping setting in the cloth room. The higher the air damping (1.0) the more the cloth will be affected by the wind.

Completely agree, you get a lot of details, like folding etc simply because it is dynamic. Which you can get in conforming as well, the biggest problem though with conforming cloth is that no matter how well it is made, its impossible for the vendor to make it work for every single situation, meaning if the character is sitting down, you would expect a lot of folds around the hip area. But unless that is build into the cloth is self, it just wont look correct.. And as you say, to have the cloth interact with other objects like a floor is very cool.

But besides these things, I think the main reasons why I like dynamic cloth, is due to mainly 3 things.

1. Speed

I started using conforming cloth and for some items these are really good, like armors etc. But I always found that working with actual cloth and them being conforming is very slow and annoying actually. Obviously is very fast to just click conform to.. select the character and apply a pose and its done. But the amount of clean up you have to do in forms of endless amount of dials you twist and turn to fix it for a given pose and then in the end you still have to accept that it doesn't really look the way you wanted were taking a lot longer compared to simply using dynamic cloth even if you have to simulate it and in the end you get a much better result.

1. Morph independent

I think this is one of the biggest benefits, which is that you don't really have to rely on morphs that are in the cloth. You can just change the character and the cloth will automatically react to it, as you say you can move the character to give the effect of wind, air resistances etc. And even with the copy morphs functionality it will only get you so far, it will not solve the "static" look . And still wont solve the issues pointed out in the above. To me it give a lot of freedom to work, so the character is what is important and not whether a given cloth item will work with what you are trying to do or not.

1. Randomness

That you never really know what you get is something that I like a lot about dynamic cloth, it makes it fun to work with, seeing how the cloth behave for varies poses.

Regarding the wind there is actually a wind force in Poser. This image uses it.

As you can see the wind presses the dress backwards, which would be near impossible to do with conforming cloth. Im pretty sure its in Poser 9 as well? Have you checked the Create menu at the top... I think its called Wind force?

I personally think that 0.500 of depth and offset is a bit to high. But again it depends on the cloth so there is not really any wrong setting as such. But I usually work in the range of 0.200 to 0.350 by default.

Shrinking a character before simulating is a good way to make a tight fit, have used that trick as well. And I don't really see any other solution to this currently as the cloth room doesn't have a shrink functionality. But would like if it were added at some point, as it would really expand on the possibilities for dynamics.

Im not really sure what you mean with changing the size of the cloth from 100% to 98% after simulating, because I would expect that to cause all sorts of poke through problems, but maybe I misunderstood you?

The last thing we need now is decent dynamic hair, that would really make things interesting, but guess that is a whole new topic :D

If I understand you correct from the movies, what you want to make is a character that have to jump off an object and grab hold of another one?

So the issue you have is really with animation and not the pivot point. If you start to change the pivot points orientation it will screw things up. As its the default rotation of the object, so what might be the default Y-axis for the character, could suddenly become a mixture of the Z and X axis. Which will make it near impossible to maintain control and is most likely why your character is spinning around like that. You shouldn't change the pivot point in order to make an animation, maybe if you are very good at it, it might be something to do, but im pretty sure that even they will avoid it and most likely rely on dummy objects instead. But that is just a guess.

Animation and especially character animation is very difficult in general, so that your animation goes wrong is very common :D

I don't know how much you know about animation and im not an expert my self, so I would suggest looking up as much information you can about it, both 2D and 3D. But basically how you can approach animation is to think about key positions or keyframes. Which are the limits of an object during an animation or what to say. Everything between these are inbetweens, which are basically frames that are the transition from one keyframe to another. Here is a simply example.

Lets imagine the ball is a character performing a jump. So you have a starting frame where he is standing on the ground, this will be your first keyframe, another where he is in the air and last where he lands on the ground.

So if you start by making each keyframe and make sure the timing is correct. Lets say it take 2 seconds for the character to jump, at 30 FPS it means you will need 60 frames. And to keep it simple, you can make the first keyframe at frame 1, second at frame 30 and the last at frame 60.

Once you have done that, you have a very rough animation, which obviously looks both bad and wrong, as Poser automatically make all the inbetweens. So this is where you have to fine tune the animation so it actually looks correct. So something like this:

So in this case the one called Anticipation, Jump (Contact) is added between the two first keyframes.and Fall (Contact) and Recovery between the second and third keyframe.

By simply adding these 4 extra keys, will make the animation look a lot better, as Poser can now make better inbetweens using these 4 keys as well.

But again I strongly suggest that you look up as much information about animation as possible, it is really difficult and it can easily go wrong....(Usually do for me :D)

jamminwolf posted at 10:36AM Mon, 09 April 2018 - #4327727

3D-Mobster posted at 11:36PM Sun, 08 April 2018 - #4327724

I think to sum it all up, learning 3d is non stop, it never ends, you are always in a learning process, no matter how good you become. :D

Oh I know quite well that there's no ending to learning 3D, been about 10 or 11 years since I started (with DS) and never quit learning. Though I quit for a few years but got back into it. And now that I'm planning on getting a new computer with updated DS and Poser, G3/G9, Dawn and Dusk, and all that jazz, I'll be learning so much more cause I'm so outdated (I'm an oldie haha).

Hmmm... the modeling program. Scary. I'll try the free one and get my hands wet. Might just not be in my bag though as I've never had any interest in modeling, just character creations, and as you can see I turned V4 into a kid (even way before S4 came out, made a few more before Tindra Thompson was released).

Thanks for your insight, sir, and I'll be waiting for your dresses :)

BTW I just bought your bedroom and breast morphs. The breast morphs gives you reasons to make more dynamic cloths hint hint LOL

...wolfie

You can get very far with character creation as I can see from the stuff you made. Especially if you combine it with Zbrush which is perfect for making morphs to be used in Poser. It also have a build in texturing tool so you can paint directly on you 3D model and with GoZ in Poser its easy to transfer the changes back again.

Regarding the breasts morphs, but basically any female character whether its V4, G8 whatever. And whether its dynamic or conforming cloth, the problem is that these character usually come with breasts where the default value (0) actually give the character curves. So most cloth gets designed for a character with this minimum breast size. Which means that the clothing item have this volume build into them by default. But most clothing in real life, except maybe a bra, is not designed that way. Which in my opinion can cause problems, especially with dynamic clothing, because the moment you reduce the breast size the extra fabric is still hanging around and doesn't disappear, which will make the clothing look unnatural, but also very unpredictable, and you basically get this issue whenever you reduce the size of a character, but simply designing the cloth for no breasts, will greatly improve this. So for dynamic cloth you should always make the clothing with no breasts at all in my opinion. Its a bit easier with conforming cloth, but I still think it causes issues, especially as you make morphs to the breasts, because the mesh of the conforming cloth still have the default shape build into them and therefore morphs are not always correctly transferred, so you have to morph your way out of it.

It would make a lot more sense I think if all clothing were designed for a character with the lowest breast size possible, as I think it would make the cloth much more flexible when it comes to changing a characters base shape. Simply because for a female character the breasts is a part that can change quite dramatically in a very small area whereas a basic male character is much more standard in shape.

And with the copy morphs... functionality in Poser (Not sure which version it were added) conforming cloth shouldn't really come with any body morphs, people should simply copy them from the character using the transfer tool, as it will copy all morphs that they might have. (Obviously depending on which version it were added. As some of the older versions of Poser might not have it.) The only morphs that should really be needed for conforming cloth are fixes and functional ones. But I assume its a leftover from old days of doing things, to be honest, and users and vendors have not really adapted to the changes in newer Poser versions, so you still see most if not all conforming cloth with a huge list of basic morphs for the characters they are intended for like "Thin", "Bodybuilder" etc. But I really don't think its needed, if the cloth were designed for the lowest breast size and people simply got used to just copying the characters morphs to the cloth and checked the 3 check boxes, so it automatically adjust it self with the character changes, it would make much better clothing in general I think.

Got a bit off topic.... yes dynamic cloth = good, love it give a character a lot of life I think :D

jamminwolf posted at 2:15AM Mon, 09 April 2018 - #4327719

Hmm, ok. I never thought I'd be interested in getting into modeling, or tampering with things already modeled. What program would ya'll suggest? And would it be easy to learn? I'm a good learner and I tear things apart and ask questions to get there, just that I'm hoping not to have to waste a lot of time learning as I'm busy with other things.

And thanks for the explanation ya'll! Especially about the bone parts, makes a lot of sense.

3D Mobster, I'd like to see more clothes from you, friend :)

...wolfie

Im actually in the process of releasing a product containing 3 casual dynamic dresses for Victoria 4 (if it get accepted crossing fingers :D)

There are a huge amount of 3d applications out there and non are easy to learn unfortunately. sketchup might be one of the easier to get started with, when you need to learn how to model and its free.

https://www.sketchup.com/

But I think its down to personal taste really what program you like and most likely you will use several as they are good at different things. Marvelous designer is also good, especially to make dynamic cloth where it is a must I think, but Its not a 3d modelling program as such as its only for cloth really. But if that is what you need, I would definitely go for that.

Zbrush is also good as you can make a lot of sculpting as if you were playing with clay. You can get a light free version here:

http://pixologic.com/sculptris/.

Its been quite a long time since I tried it, but its really fun and give you an idea of how the "real" program works. I also think it allows you to export obj files, which you can import into Poser.

Headus UVLayout is really good for making UVs I think, which is what I use. But most 3d apps have tools for that as well. But I don't really know how good they are.

Last you need a program for making/painting textures, such as photoshop/gimp or substance painter or one of the others.

The bad news is, that none of these program are easy to use and requires a lot of practice, but you wont really be able to make anything really useful, if you cant do the following things:

Modelling

Unwrapping

Texturing

Rigging inside Poser (Which is not easy either I think) (This is only if you want to make characters, conforming cloth.)

... and then all the varies issues that constantly popup with things not working the way you want them....and trust me its to point where you want to throw everything in the bin, especially as you try to learn, there are so many issues, like shading that looks wrong, materials that looks different in Poser than what you thought, lighting as you already know from Poser :D

I think to sum it all up, learning 3d is non stop, it never ends, you are always in a learning process, no matter how good you become. :D

hborre posted at 12:28AM Mon, 09 April 2018 - #4327715

You could use the original object file rather than export and re-importing. But, again, as mentioned, it depends how the mesh is constructed for the clothing which could give problems. You may need to go as far as modifying the object file in a third-party modeling program to clean up the mesh for dynamic use.

It shouldn't make a different whether you use the original or an exported one, if the export settings are correct. As you said i think the only real solution is to modify it in a 3rd party program and try to cut out the inner part. But i doubt it will turn out very well. :)

I work a lot with dynamic cloth (basically only use it to be more precise :D)

Using conforming cloth as dynamic cloth is not really good as Poser have a very hard time simulating it. This is also one of the main reasons why it take a long time to simulate and crash.

Its crucial if you want to benefit and have fun with dynamic cloth that these are designed for it and most conforming cloth is not, its designed for making use of a bone structure. Therefore you can get away with a lot more mesh wise, because it will be controlled by the skinning (bones) and they doesn't care about overlaps etc. So when the simulation crashes its most likely because the mesh gets so screwed up that the cloth room can't handle it.

You can make thick dynamic cloth, I made a quilt and a pillow, which are dynamic, but it really need to be carefully designed for it, to make sure that the simulation doesn't take ages and crashes. You can see how i made it in my store.

But for clothing you need a single surface mesh and to make sure that there are no overlapping faces.

For me when I export I usually uncheck everything, but again those things I export are already designed for being dynamic, if its conforming I don't really think it makes a different. The cloth room is simply not working very well with just throwing in cloth designed for conforming.

the_lova_skul posted at 11:34PM Sun, 08 April 2018 - #4327708

WHY IS THIS PROGRAM CRAP!!!!!! EVEN WITH THE DIALS IT'S SUPER IMPRECISE

I have never really gotten the impression that Poser were a very precise program, neither one where it crucial :) In fact most 3D applications are not extremely precise unless you write the exact values, which you can do in Poser as well. The biggest difference is that most 3d modelling programs have snapping tools which allow you to snap to faces, vertices etc. But besides the pivot point in Poser there is not really a huge need for snapping as I see it.

But guess that doesn't help you a lot :D So there are two solutions you can do in Poser which might help you.

1. You can type in values in the joint editor.
2. As you seem to prefer dials, there is a small white arrow next to the dial, if you press that and choose settings, you can change the sensitivity.

Also typing in caps without any screenshots or description of what you are trying to do, ain't really making it easier to help you or getting people to help you I think :D

As Boni, its a difficult question to answer. Because there is not really that much to know about pivot points. Its basically just the rotational point of an object. For instant if you load a box in Poser and rotate it, it will spin around the bottom part of the box on the X and Z axis and spin around itself on the Y axis. This is because the pivot point is at the bottom center of the box.

If you open the joint editor you can see where the pivot point it placed for a given object (Green cross). Its the same for bones in a character, where the pivot point is placed at the root of the bone and aligned towards the end of the bone (called End point). So normally you would place the bone at the shoulder towards the elbow of a character which will allow the character to rotate the shoulder.

//Don't care if it's a thread, tutorial, link to SmithMicro's forums or a premade material but I'd love to know if there's a best way to do this.

On a similar subject, are all BagginsBill's lovely materials now defunct in Superfly?//

I don't know if its the best way to do it :D But at least its the way I like to do it.

I normally use two different setup, which depend on the type of glass. If its for windows i use one of the following.

I think there are benefits with both. The cycle setup is based on the glass shader, which include refractions which you would expect in glass. However I think its easier to customize the glass using the physical setup as you have more dials to adjust without having to add a lot of extra cycle nodes. And in this example as its thin glass like in a window, there is not a huge benefit from the refraction in the glass shader, as thin window glass have near to no refraction, just as a windshield etc. Also I think its easier to add dirt to the glass when using the physical setup compared to a cycle one.

If you have thick glass like in this example.

the cycle shader is a lot better as now the refraction really shows. But again the physical setup can be useful if you for instant have to make a light bulb and dont want to model it with thickness etc.

So at least to me it depends on what type of glass im after or working with. I think both give good results with very basic setups.

Im not sure how you would achieve this and maintain a good end result. Human fingers are fairly complex when interacting with objects as they tend to behave both in regards to the weight of the object, it's shape, as well as the position in which the object is held in comparison to the character. But even the mood of a character will be important, like if the character is angry they might have a different hand pose compared to a happy character. Obviously a lot more factors would have to be included as well.

My point is not that since a wrap script most likely wouldn't be able to do this, it would therefore be useless. But more that you most likely would end up having to modify your fingers regardless, because the script wouldn't be able to get it right anyway.

Looking at your image as an example and we imagine that the cylinder were held upwards instead, then the hand pose would no longer seem natural, as an example it would be unnatural to extend you index finger like in your image to counterweight the weight of cylinder should it be held upwards, unless you maybe held it above you head, but as you move it down below your head, your pose would change accordingly. So how a script would take that into account I have a hard time seeing. But its an interesting idea non the less.

Posing fingers can be time consuming, but if you make a small library with "default" hand positions it can speed things up. Personally since I work primarily with V4 and M4, i think I have around 10-12 standard positions for each of them and then I use the hand pose which comes the closest to what I need, most of the time you only have to make minor adjustment to the fingers to make them fit. I think the biggest problem when working with hands on 3D models is the lack of being able to curl the palm slightly. as you often end up with them being less flexible than a real hand.

I don't think so, basically what you do is to reduce the amount of information in the image which required 4000x4000 pixel to suddenly fit in a 400x400, so you loose a lot of information (details). The only way to improve the details of the text is to add it after you have resized the images so it is made to fit the 400x400 size. But regardless of how you do it, small text on a 400x400 will always look blurred simply due to the lack of pixels in the image, so its a matter of just trying different font sizes until you are happy..

Unfortunately there are no logic way to do this. However a way you can do it is to export the final frame of the simulation as an obj file (Make sure you only select the cloth). Then import it again instead of the current cloth. Now the default shape of the cloth will look like the last frame and you just have to setup the simulation again, meaning just replace the old cloth with the new cloth you imported in the cloth room, all the settings should be the same. Also make sure that you reapply the textures after import.

It would be a very nice addition to Poser if you could actually set an initial starting frame, hope they add that at some point.