Easypose Underground - excellent tool for all sorts of editing of joints and morphs and ERC connections, as fast and easily as possible. Very well supported by Ajax. I find uses for it on every project I do these days. http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=2881&TopID=162808 cr2 Builder - Free cr2 editor similar concept to cr2 editor but much more robust with many more features. this is my go to cr2 editor http://www.geocities.co.jp/Bookend-Ohgai/9483/tool/CR2Builder/index.html Phi Builder - latest version is nearly 10 years old I believe, but still the easiest tool to create Phi files for complex rigs. http://www.royriggs.com/poser.html Tool Collection - another vote for this awsome set of tools for content production. another package I use on every project. http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=37406 Edit Pad Pro - I know this is more of a generic text editor but it has some amazing features built into it and gets used constantly in my production. particularly the ability to do batch processes. like search and replacing multiple lines of text on dozens of files at one time. http://www.editpadpro.com/

If you have Poser 6 or 7 you are better off creating material Collections. basically create your material setup in poser then save to your material library and it will ask if you want to save as a single material or all the materials on the figure if you save all the materials that is saved as an .mc6 file. you can use this for Poser 6 or 7 or you can convert it to a pz2 extremely easily by editing the file. go into the .mc6 file with a text editor, and where it says mtlCollection change that to figure then resave the file to your pose library but change the extention from .mc6 to .pz2

you can isolate figures and such by hiding everything and rendering one element at a time but then you have to play with reconstructing shadows and such. or using the alpha for that element, to isolate it in a master image. there is a new tool for Studio though which is designed to create masks of all your surfaces specifically for the purpose of isolating parts in Photoshop. http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=5636&cat=5

Quote - I recall from the copyright fourm that it was pretty common for thieves to try to resell lo-res versions of our merchants' hair and clothing as 2nd life items. then they would make the legit owners jump thru hoops to get the illegal items removed. but check the copyright forum for more info, in case I remembered wrong.

I think you are thinking SimCity.

Quote - I thank you all so very much for your info on this.  I am not an artist at all and cannot even fathom the thought  of ever producing anything as creative as you guys all do here.  Your gallery is full of the most fantastic images and I love to come browse and see what is here.  I have been so inspired that I am seriously considering taking up digital art as a hobby bu thave no idea where to start.  What would you all recommend for a start?  Thanks again........

you could start by going over to Daz3d.com and downloading DAZ Studio, that is a free program which can use poser content, it comes with a package of content to start you off and give you a feel for how things work.

Quote - Re SL:  I wonder if the P2 figures are low res enough? Using them would give one a bit of a head start.

M

head start for what? you can't load any geometry into SL at all.

SecondLife uses special low rez figures and all other meshes are limited to what is availible in second life (basically just primitive shapes) so there is no way to actually import any poser items to second life. There is a new sculpt primitive that allows a map based on a low rez mesh to be produced in some modelers which can recreate that mesh in SL the mesh size is only 1024 vertexes though. there are some poser artists who are also doing textures and other items in SL, though as I said that is a totally seperate venture, and you are not likely to find stuff from Poser in SL. one thing that can be done in poser for SL is bvh files using the special poserized SL figures, these bvh files are used to animate figures in SL.

yes you can bring Poser figures right into C4D without interposer, there are a couple of free plugins that will help make it easier, Spankies Riptide is one, and there is also a plugin from a french artist specifically designed for it, though the name escapes me but she posted in the C4D forum within the past few months as I recall. but with those solutions you will have to do a little more work with materials, specifically loading transmaps into the alpha channel things like that.

Quote - Just looked up Interposer Pro and it says-
" Texture image files with Poser 4/ProPack-level material support."
Meaning no skin shaders?
I couldnn't live without my skin shaders (or many procedural-node textures)

its really impossible to convert shader systems from one program to another, they generally work completely differently. If you want to use poser shaders than stick with poser. C4D has much better shaders than poser though, it does mean a little more work but frankly the rewards will far outweigh the work.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/support/downloads/-/?product=car_plug

Quote - > Quote - just curious, interposer pro is too expensive for you but you are going to buy maya? which is several thousand dollars? I know there is a free learning edition but I believe the renderer is watermarked and size limited so not really useful as a renderer, and not sure if you can import .obj format into it.

no, they have Maya already. (first post of the thread)

for a cost effective render method, there's the Poseray / Povray combo... Pov is still one of the best render engines I've seen.... and it's Free.

ah ok sorry missed that. if you have C4D I would definately go with that, interposer Limited is pretty cheep at $40 though I would go for Interposer Pro personally, its worth every cent, as it imports fully rigged figures, you dont even have to use Poser, you can import directly from your runtime into C4D.

on collada files I believe the answer is yes for Maya, and I know the answer is no on C4D, I asked them at siggraph when they were going to add it, and they couldnt give me a straight answer. and yes I would say Carrara would probably the easiest choice, with quite a good renderer, particularly if you want to import fully rigged figures.

just curious, interposer pro is too expensive for you but you are going to buy maya? which is several thousand dollars? I know there is a free learning edition but I believe the renderer is watermarked and size limited so not really useful as a renderer, and not sure if you can import .obj format into it.

Quote - Actually I want to take a Poser figure, wearing clothes, and export that as the new obj file, then replace the original figure file with that, after eliminating the poke thru polygons

yes that is doable, it should be pretty straight forward just export the object with the clothing on and when you save it out of the modeler save it all in one piece since the clothing and the figure will have the same group names they should be treated as part of the same group, so all you would need to do is make a copy of the original cr2 and change the obj refrences to point at your new object. But you will have two major drawbacks trying to do things this way, the first is that you will have to adjust all the joint parameters to encompass the clothing as well as the figure. and the second is that since this is essentially a brand new object the virtex count will be completely different you will loose all morphs.

Gareee, jt411 was talking from a user standpoint, and from his standpoint even though a merchant needs to continue to use Poser to develop content for Poser, that won't stop the customer from buying your Poser content if they want to becouse they will be able to import it directly into carrara. as far as procedural shaders for Poser yes they will be out of luck becouse Carrara uses its own shader system, so they will need to recreate shaders, but then again people already do have to do so for Studio in some cases. Some merchants have seen oppertunities in additional support for Studio, some have chosen not to. that may well happen with Carrara as well. just means more possibilities to me.