I think there is a slight flaw in the breast morph set. It looks like her underwire has left a big scar. :) Is this one breast morph target or multiple. I've found that using a single target set to 1 can have this effect but using breast targets 1, 2 & 3 with a setting of .3 can give a very nice petite breast with no adverse geometry. Also considering the pose, it seems that the breasts should be gravitating toward the armpits. I haven't played with nudes or the breast settings enough to know if my second point can be overcome. Maybe the Natural setting can help with the effect. Otherwise I think this looks very good. I like Stephanie more then Vicky. Are you planning on painting hair in post? If so, you ought to be able to blend the lower region of her breasts to get rid of the dark area.

Oops, changed the position of the front buggy as well.

Thanks Kromekat. Sometimes I like to see the logical counterpoints to my opinions. I have to wholeheartedly agree about he Lightwave UI. I loaded the Demo from Digit or 3DWorld and deleted it the same day. :)

Well, Having pt my foot in my mouth in regard to Bryce's future before, I guess it's time I do so again... How is the UI Bryce? So it's unique and what we are all comfortable with at this point in our collective Bryce careers, but how does a UI make the program? I mean, I can understand how it can break one, but come on. If the UI were different, but still managable, would not the end result "be Bryce." Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought that it was the fantastic images that rival $1500-$5000 programs that "made Bryce." I thought it was the level of complexity available in the material and terrain editors that "made Bryce." Am I wrong and all this time I was using Bryce, I could have gotten all the same results with another program and UI? Simplifying, expanding and or flat out changing that interface may be a hard pill to swallow, but I consider the Art made possible by Bryce to be what "makes Bryce."

Unless your are doing something that requires textures other then those assigned in Poser, Why are you exporting as a .obj file? Importing the pz3 file will automatically assign the proper texture and transmap. But to answer your question, you'll have to assign a tranparency value in the mat editor set global transparency to 100% and then edit the function and place the transmap in the "mapped values" Hope that helps

Time for me to apologize. I did get a bit defensive. I see from your your second post that no offense was meant and therefore no apologies are nescessary. I guess what set me off was the "does not an artist make." Though I would never claim an adjective to be supplied at the front of that word when describing myself (i.e. 'Good Artist' :) I find it condescending and a bit arrogant when an "artist" tells another that they are not one. Please understand this interpretation of your statment was likely due to my own biases and they are not an excuse for my defensiveness. Let's keep up the helpfull spirit and all have fun doing what we love.

Cat I've been watching that discussion, and I do hope that Bryce is picked up and kept alive and improved. But I'm a cinic, and I've been disappointed by corporate downsizing too often to get my hopes up. I will keep my fingers crossed though, because if the team most interrested, is the team that Corel sells to, then Bryce's future would be nothing if not bright.

Since I made the "jungle" statement, I will respond and try to keep the offense taken to nuski's statement to a minimum.

My problem with Bryce 5 and the tree lab lay in the fact that I had 20 images to complete within a timeframe and using Bryce for an overgrown jungle was wholey inefficient. It took me 8 hours to complete only the shrubery of the forest floor using Bryce. This due to that fact that I did not want any of the 'ferns' in the scene to be the same.

I admit that I do rely on material and tree object presets to get me going. But if Metacreations (and then Corel) have supplied you with a material that works or a tree shape that needs only a little tweaking, then why not use it. If that makes me a non-artist, then so be it. And looking at nuski's gallery I can see that a preset material is not present there. I applaud you.

As has been said many times in both forums (and now twice by myself) Bryce and Vue are both great programs with different strengths and weaknesses. I love Bryce for the DTE, volumetric materials and the variety of manipulations available in the terrain editor. I love Vue for the ease of Poser imports, the skys and the efficiency of vegitation creation.

Both programs have room to grow. And both can learn from each other. I agree wholeheartedly with AgentSmith in regard to competition. I feel a world without Bryce OR Vue would only hurt the surviving program. I apologize to the die-hard Bryce lovers if my comments about Corel were mis-interpretted as 'good ridance.'

Sorry for your experience. I took the other route to Vue becoming my app of choice. I had Bryce, upgraded to 5 and was using it. I had two projects for which Bryce was well suited. First was a sci-fi cityscape and second was techno-interiors. I was very happy with my results. Then I had to move on to a jungle setting. This had been my sole reason for upgrading to 5. It was a horrible disappointment. The tree lab is sorely lacking. And that is all it can do; trees. Well, anybody that has seen the out-of-doors knows that trees are not the only type of vegitation there is. As a matter of fact, I'm now amazed at how little trees actually add to a nature scene. So I'm working with Bryce, as well as I can, when I happen across Vue2 in Digit. I get it. I use it. I'm hooked. Then I upgrade my whole system to XP and I lose Vue2. I know at this point I can't complete the project without it, so I upgrade to Vue4 and I haven't looked back. There are so few things I find lacking in Vue now after using it. Of course there are some things that I think Vue can still use that Bryce does far better. But this only gives e-on direction to grow. And as far as Bryce is concerned, Corel seems to be dropping it anyway (see the Bryce forum). Sorry for rambling, Will

For the Poser people, the best way might be to use the art image as a seperate layer in Photoshop (or whatever you use) applying this over a skin texture file and make that layer about 50% opacity. I'd do this, because there will always be some color shift due to the natural hue of the skin. Otherwise it will look painted rather then like a tattoo. The next step would probably be to slightly fade the edges and then save the new image file. Apply the new texture in poser and see how it turns out. Go back and make any changes you see fit. When done, save the poser file and import into Vue. For the umbrella, I'd use UV mapper but this would have to be on a Wavfront obj. file. If you are using a Vue preset, you may be out of luck, but applying the image as a material might work with some effort.

I'd label myself an intermediate/beginner to 3D art and I found the tutorial to be very informative and well laid out. Thank you. My only want for the tutorial would be two images on page nine. One showing the final lighting effect as you have now, but another showing the placement of those lights. I realize this wasn't a lighting tutorial, but page nine just looks a bit like a magician saying, "Now that you can all see the Eiffel Tower, work on making it disappear. Like so." poof "See?" Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the tutorial, and the magician simile is meant wholey as a compliment, because that is definitely what it appears to be from page 8 to 9; magic. This is a fantastic image as usual for you.

"Parametric" This maps the texture to the object according to the mesh rather then in reference to xyz axis, either world or object.

The Vue4 description offerred on Eon's website is a bit misleading. Vue can only export terrain and lattice, same as Bryce. Sorry about that. Vue and Bryce are render engines and that is what they do well. I use both programs but if you're looking to model props for export into other programs, I suggest a cheap modeller to start with. I began with Amapi and now I use Rhino. You can likely find Amapi 4-5 for less then $50.

I'll have to place some of the individual images in my gallery. My client is hosting the book, and I'm still not quite sure why they prefer the exe vs. just having a straight pdf file. I'll post again when I can get some of the images in my gallery.