OMG, acadia, you rock my world today. :) thanks!

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tut.ez?Form.ViewPages=968

i'm new here, and i joined renderosity specifically to learn more. i am much more interested in receiving (and giving) constructive criticism than i am in admiration. i have noticed that this is very, very rare, however -- most comments are praise. and really unequivocal and strong praise to boot; it is as if many people had no other terms in their vocabulary than "excellent" and "fantastic", and for images that, sometimes i boggle at, they're artistically so unformed. i imagine that with some folks it's meant as encouragement for their friends, and encouragement is important -- but as a result, when i got such comments on my first post, i didn't know how to take it; was it just more of the same, meant as encouragement for a new artist, or did people really think my image was excellent when i can see some problems with it myself? it devalues praise if it's given by the bucketload.

furthermore, i have also seen people who give an actual critique cut down immediately by others. all this has led me to step very carefully when offering one, though really, i love analysis, and sharing of process, and hearing how others see the very same image i see.

i looked at your latest image when you posted it, and saw the notes that said "Hell with riding a chocobo or a horse, I want to ride a giant feline. [...] Used the gimp this time for some mad post processing, hope you like it.".

i don't write critique when somebody says "hope you like it". i only do it when a person asks for comments either directly, or in a way that makes me think they want my honest impressions. your notes made it seem like it was more of a private enjoyment than an image meant to be critiqued. i imagine i am not the only person who's gunshy about comments.

of course if you don't get anyone to view it they won't even see the notes. eye-catching thumbnails and good titles are the trick here. the link up there is to a quickie tutorial (which isn't great, but gives you a decent start). the most important part is the bit about moving the crop tool selection around until you find an interesting view.

"I'm just finding it much harder to find people that know and answer software related questions"

huh. i am new to this forum (and to poser) but a net veteran, and i've been impressed by how quickly people are answering software (and other) questions here! yes, there are a lot of freebie links, but they just require a little scrolling if i am not interested in the freebie in question -- same as any other short thread for which i have no use.

threads with complaints about some aspect of this site, on the other hand, grow to much greater proportions, and require more scrolling. :)

i find the forum setup itself terribly antiquated and cumbersome for finding specific things -- but as i've just read, that will change soon. i don't know exactly what the new forums will look like, but i strongly suspect that they will solve most of the problem you have with "spam" here (aside: i really dislike it when people misuse terms -- spam is unsolicited BULK mail/posts; the freebie posts are neither). because in all the modern board systems, the comments are not linearly appended as they are here, but you have to click on the subject to get to the discussion. much less scrolling, and easier selectivity for what you choose to read. then folks will probably end up complaining about people picking bad subject lines. wry grin.

yeah, i don't use the search engine here at all; i recommend using google instead. in this case "button dress daz site:market.renderosity.com" had it as the first hit; if you don't limit the search to the site, it comes up 2nd, right after the daz item itself.

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=44291

what OS are you using? windows users should not just defrag their hard drives, but also their page files. there's a free utility available at sysinternals.com.

i can access it today, but i had trouble with it last week -- i am in british columbia on vancouver island, and use telus. you could try using a public proxy server to access it.

thank you! that's an extremely useful utility.

how does vue infinite compare in render times with poser's firefly?

does this do something other than opening a command prompt window and typing "dir /b /s > filename" in the root of the structure you want listed?

there are a number of programs that can create textures, such as genetica or texture maker. there are also photoshop plugins; aside from eye candy mentioned above, you can find a lot of them at the plugin site. but any of that will generally not help you create realistic human skin; for that you need to have good photographic sources (your own would be cheapest if you already have a camera). but hey, why just go for realism? everybody does realism these days. be creative; do your own thing.

don't forget -- poser 5/6 itself can create great procedural textures if you learn to work the material room. i feel that a lot of people don't take advantage of that, and it might be a bit intimidating at first glance. but it's well worth it.

i should have my head examined, since i am about to make my first post here to a thread about nudity -- a perennial favourite subject for riling the natives in any visual arts environment. hi. waves. i am not a prude (said in best richard nixon voice), but... the original post struck a chord, because i'd just been rolling my eyes at yet another nude with large breasts, this one especially eyeroll-worthy because it was offered as a "what if -- women would run the world". i barely restrained myself from commenting that if women were running the world, they'd not be going to war topless and in hotpants. and that was not actually the worst boob image of the day. so yeah, it would improve my viewing experience here if there were fewer such works of "art" present. but ya know? i am really not at all opposed to nudity. two of my favourite artists are represented on my fledgling homepage with nude images. ratscloset has hit the nail on the head: it's just the amount of bad art featuring giant boobs that overwhelms at times, and today was one of those days, which is why the original post here struck that chord. there are other things that cause an eye roll (can some people not say anything other than "fanatsic scene and excelllent!!11!11!" in their comments?), and at those moments i'd like a filter for "crap that grates on my nerves". grin. so, really -- it's a personal thing; it's about me, not about the images. as a matter of fact i like it that renderosity allows nudity, and as a new poser artist, i concur with some of the folks here who said a lot of nudity is the result of being new to this -- i have a hard enough time as yet to create a realistic pose of my own, and am currently working to understand how poser does lighting; i don't actually want to be thinking about fitting clothing yet. creating good skin is also a marvelous challenge, and one i am not familiar with, because poser is the first 3D program in which i am rendering people. i am sure my experience is not unique. my favoured solution to both, allow everyone's way of expression even if juvenile, and to spare the weary the 20,000th giant boob job, is to fix the damn filters, and to lean on people to enforce checking the box. so, to whom does one appeal for software fixes around here?