Thanks for the reply Realmling. Yeah I Import --> Background image before anything else. It's odd because it seems to happen when my Shadows are set to anything lower than 1, but at 1 it's fine. An alternative solution has been to just lower the Intensity of that light, then set a similar light on or next to it with shadows turned off to retain the intensity I want. This problem might just carry with the pz3 file I always load, which is where my main character is saved to (I don't konw what I just don't save my characters as Figures). Anyway, it could be a strange bug, or perhaps I accidentally changed a setting without knowing it. No big deal... yet.

Once again, the Renderosity forums prove to host the most helpful community on the net. Thanks, you guys pointed me exactly where I needed to go! There is currently a thread about the Aery Short hair on their forum, so I'm checking that out now. The other hair I mentioned has already been downloaded or purchased :-) Edit: Aw, Aery Soul has permanently deleted the short hair product, and they don't plan on repackaging it anytime soon. Oh well, I'll live.

Message edited on: 01/25/2006 17:57

No problem... glad you got it worked out :-)

That's exactly what happened to me. Just reply to the address they used to send you the login information (I believe it's a Hotmail account). Hopefully they're still awake!

Yes, I bought the handgun deal (buy that get another package for free). The username + password they gave me didn't work, so I replied and got a response that very day. This was maybe less than a week ago, so they should be around somewhere.

Excellent, that was actually just what I was looking for. Before going ahead and purchasing the coat, however, does anyone think of any reason why that coat would NOT convert to dynamic cloth? I don't want to purchase it now, and find out later that it totally messes up when calculated in the cloth room. Hopefully it doesn't take forever to calculate, either...

"Another thing that you could try (if you're willing to brave the render time) would be using heavy atmosphere with clouds and noise nodes, and then animating the clouds and noise." Heh, I'm a coward when it comes to render time. I use Poser for animations, so I need the best quality with the fastest results. I'll try these methods to see which looks and works best, and I'll have to take a look at that Particles program. It's nice to see Poser finally moving up the ranks and working with atmosphere & particle fx (as you can see I've been a P4 user).

Cool, I'll have to check that out. How in the hell did you come up with something like that?? I would've never thought of that <_<

I'll experiment a little. Thanks for the replies! On a side note, I just noticed that P6 renders shadows on an invisible ground plane!!! I know it isn't much, but it really annoyed me that P4 couldn't do this, and for all the animated/static backgrounds I integrate into my projects (such as Terragen landscapes), these ground plane shadows will finally make it look seemless. EDIT: I wonder if Jepes' Steam product at DAZ would yield decent results? I'm not sure unless I loop the same textured prop over and over at amazing speeds to create that intense wind effect... but I could also do this in AfterFX and add motion blur to the steam layer in order to save render time in Poser (I do this a lot... I'll substitute blur in Poser and instead do it in AfterFX).

Message edited on: 01/19/2006 01:03

Hey guys,
I really appreciate all the great replies, but I decided to tone down the flame a bit, and therefore it becomes less animated. I just purchased a flame package from the Market Place for a mere $6, and it's got some great glow effects I can use for torches (while UltimateFIRE is good for candles), so I just tweak the flame to have a pulsating glow effect instead. With P4, that's probably my only route unless I spend hours hand-animating flame textures... I really should upgrade my Poser package!

Message edited on: 09/20/2005 23:24

Hm, that might work. I would definately have to cut it down to about 20 frames, then just create some trans maps in Photoshop. I'll give it a try. Do you have any other flame animations? Thanks

Well I could definately do that (in fact, I thought about scaling it in Poser to create a flame animation), but it doesn't have that realism effect I'm looking for. I need the flame to be in different positions to look as though it is "dancing", like a real flame might... at least when in mildly windy conditions. I actually want to use it for a torch effect, so the flame needs to be a little more powerful and actually move around. I'm currently searching for free, high res stock footage of flame animations... so if anyone knows where I can get them, PLEASE let me know! Thanks!

"I think you need at least P5 to be able to animate textures."

Well the way I've been doing it is just simply applying textures to different squares, then moving them in the 3D space in such a way that it appears to animate. Each square must be identical in size, and be place in the exact same spot when in frame (though it doesn't matter where they are out of frame), then just replace them one frame at a time to create an animation.

So I guess if I had multiple frames of that flame flickering, I could do that, but the package only comes with one texture for the flame.

Okay, so I just created a new folder and installed both products there (then moved them to Poser), and it works. I now got the high res texture maps, poses, and MATs... but what I still can't find are the different morphs for various breeds. I did purchase the Millennium Dog Starter Pack, which should include a bunch of different breed of dog (and textures according to the pics), but there's no morphs or anything to be found. I'm still stuck with this one brown dog. Am I just stupid and blind and missing something, or what's up? EDIT: Sorry, but it's cool now! I had the LE model loaded instead of the regular one, which contains all the morphs for the different breeds. We're all good. Thanks for the help!

Message edited on: 06/19/2005 00:25

lol, whether or not you're "supposed" to be confused is all up in the air. It either clicks or it doesn't, but about 95% of the population will be confused because the story is still trying to figure itself out. The later episodes reveal or heavily imply everything, so don't worry :)

Well, since we're on the subject, why not check out my series of shorts (still in production) animated and rendered with Poser 4? Please keep in mind that I am somewhat of a NOOB with 3D animation (or just 3D in general), so don't expect high quality work here. Everything I know has been self-taught, but I am going to school for it this fall.

Anyway, check out my series at: http://noescape.rateofinjury.com and let me know what you think!