As far as what is involved, I guess it wouldn't be all that much.
I would probably just take a look at the textures they already have in the 
Textures folder and see what sizes they used and like that and kinda go from there.

Those too were donated from some nice persona as well, so you see, it all goes around :)

And I sure found out something last night, I pretty much know squat about Poser LOL
The reason, so far all I've been using it for is what the name says, Posing objects.
I've never once tried to use most of the other features, namely making an actual scene in there.
I spent the whole rest of the night till nearly 3am just trying to learn how to make proper 
lighting and make that lighting work with my textures, boy was I lost LOL
I just wasn't used to working with making texturing that way at all, not the nodes part of it, 
but kinda everything else, as I work with nodes in LW and in Vue and others.

But, finally, I started to get results that I actually was trying to get from the start and this ended up 
being my very first little Poser scene sample, all just to show that you can use Ivy Gen with Poser LOL

Most of the problems that people have been asking about here so far, those were all the easy parts to me.
The scene part is what was killing me LOL
And I had to end up making my own textures from the ones they supplied 
cuz things kept coming out backwards when I went to load the Ivy into Poser.
So I had to redo a couple of the textures (I eventually figured out LOL) to get things to work.
So, here's my very first scene I ever made in Poser, so don't laugh too hard LOL

Anyway, I would love to see what textures you come up with?
I've thought of textures samples such as Money and things so you could have a money vine growing ;)
Would be fun for something, I'm sure, not realistic, but fun either way :)

OK, well, thanx all and I'm glad people are enjoying the tutorial too.
I also am glad I posted that thing in a few different forums, cuz I might othrwise never 
have known about some of these other issues that have been brought up and 
this all will be great info for the updated stuff I'll be adding to the tutorial.

.............................md :)

Well, what you aren't understanding here, is that it TOTALLY doesn't matter what happen to the objects that you export.
See, you "won't" be using those in your scenes.
All you are doing is making a "stand-in" object to make the Ivy on.
Once you have your ivy made, THATS all that you need.
You can toss the stand in object out for all it matters, except you 
will want it for any future experiments of course, but the point being, that you 
WILL NOT beingusing that object in your Poser scene or in any scene for that matter.
You could use them, but why?
If you already have a perfectly fine working Poser object or any 
other 3D object, why use some exported OBJ object for your scene?
You just don't need to.
I'm sure as heck not using the exported objects. 
I'm using the "original" Greek Ruins object in Poser and things are fine.
No need to use my exported objects.
You load in your Ivy and be on your way with your scene :)

Hope that clears that whole issue up about the triangulating objects and exporting 
and all that, they just are needed as stand in objects for a refference to make the ivy on.
Thats all :)

Enjoy!

...................................md :)

I'll post my sample scene later, but I'm done for the evening here :)
I just want to chill in front of the TV and doze off, now that I am nice and full from dinner :)

*LOL, no kidding! I don't really know what that is exactly...something about triangles.*Yes, but I gave a pretty good work around that really isn't that big of a deal actually.
It only took me a couple of minutes to do the whole thing.

Export your object as a 3DS object.
Close out what is currently loaded.
Import that same 3DS object that you just exported.
Export that right back out as a OBJ object.
And there ya go, an object that is triangulated and in the format that Ivy Gen wants, OBJ format.

Just use the settings I posted above :)

Update Note:
And yep, by Flipping the UVs on Importing the Ivy OBJ into Poser, 
that makes the leafs all the correct way and looks fine! :)
And in a few minutes here I'll have my very first Poser/Ivy Gen scene :)

............md :)

Right now I am trying to see if I can work out some of these odities that sometimes occure, 
like the Ivy exporting the wrong way up or upside down or mirrored, 
but I may not be able to solve those problems.
And also, I am not too experienced yet with Poser, 
I have Poser 6 and am still kinda new to it, so I'm doing the best I can :)

And of course, if others know more about what they may run into like I am, please 
post any and all sollutions you might be able to add to this topic so that way we 
all can learn and I can add these things in the next version of the tutorial.
but there may not be some answers for things, as the program (Ivy Gen) 
may just have some issues and nothing we can do about that LOL

My object comes out looking reversed when I load it into Ivy Gen, yet when I load it into Poser, it's fine.
And same thing with the generated Ivy, it looks fine, albeit backwards in Ivy Gen, 
but comes out all small in Poser and also, the leafs are all unpsidedown as well.
But this may be fixable by simply flipping the UVs when you import the OBJ.
I'll keep experimenting here though and see what I come up with?

I'll still keep my eye out though on the subject anyway :)

...................md :)

And yes, I see that the ruins object comes out reversed in the Ivy Gen program, 
it doesn't look like that in Poser of course, so this is what of the issues I was refering 
to in my original posting about how the Ivy Gen program seems to have issues with Axis?

I am of course, still working at trying to find the best sollutions to mimimize 
these types of problems or at the least, come up with decent workable work 
arounds and I will sooner or later, hopefully sooner then later? LOL

I am working on that right now and will try and get some better info for you posted up soon, ok?

The most obvious method would be to simply mirror you Ivy when it's finished and 
that would solve everything, but I just want to be sure thats the best method to to do?

I'll be around though :)

............md :)

..............md :)

First is the object after I had exported it out as a 3DS (Max) format and then imported that object right 
back into Poser and THEN exported it out again but this time as the OBJ (Wavefront) format.

And finally, you can see the results in the Ivy Gen program :)

Hope this clears things up and actually, I am totally glad you brought this subject up, 
cuz other wize I might never have thought about it, since I have several 3D programs 
I work with, it wouldn't be an issue for me, and it never occured to me that some 
people might only have one kind of 3D program, be it Poser or what ever 
else and they would have these problems then, so thanx!

............................md :)

OK, well, it looks like I already figured out a work around for you that WILL work and it seems so far to work quite nicely to boot! :)

What I did was, i loaded in the Greek Ruins.
I made sure that it had most if not all, Quads for polygons, which it did.
So, I exported that out in the OBJ format, and sure enoughm, you're right, it exports it out the same way it shows up in Poser (I'm using Poser 6 until I can afford 7).

Sooo, the trick is to do this:
Export you object as a 3DS format.
This will guarenty that you WHOLE object comes out with trippled polygons.
Clear that Poser object out (new scene).
Import that 3DS object you just exported out and guess what, ALL the trippled polies will still stay intact.
Sooo, NOW you can export that again in the OBJ format this time and this time it will 
save with ALL of the trippled polies intact with the OBJ formatted object and there ya go!
All nice and ready for using in Ivy Gen for you :)
Don't worry about things like whether or not textures/materials and all that 
show up on your objects, as they aren't needed in Ivy Gen anyway, you're 
only using the program to mgenerate your Ivy with anyway.
Once you make the Ivy and export that out (also as an OBJ formated object, 
it's only format it can save to) then, simply load in your Ivy into Poser and enjoy!

Hope this helps? :)

...................md :)

Hmmm, I haven't yet tested this with all the various formats of 3D models, though I am working to get that accomplished :)
So bare with me a little on time here, especially, since I really only get to work on this stuff over the weekend and this next coming weekend I won't be around, but I'll sure be doing my best to help when ever I can and if I can :)

Is there any particular model you are working with, I have most of the main objects, bought a ton load when DAZ messed up all our accounts in that buyout deal of Hexagon and we all got vouchers to spend on stuff, so I just bought lots of what ever looked good and then there's all those freebies out there too LOL

Anyway, I don't know how many building or wall or plant type Poser objects I have, it probably isn't all that much, since I model most of those sort of things myself in other programs I use, as I mostly just wanted animals the most and people secondly and then what ever else I thought I might like from DAZ LOL

You can email me directly if you want to at md at md-arts.com and I can spend a bit better time sorting this part out with you, but want to keep the good info still posted here so others can get something from it, of course :)

Off hand though, it sort of sounds like some of the polies just need to be flipped, i.e. their normals flipped, which they do have a button there for that, but if it's only happening to certain polies, then you would have to manually flip those, uhg, you wouldn't enjoy that much, I can tell you that right now LOL

Anyway, let me know which object it is, if you can?

I do have that one object, I think it's called, Ruins?
Should I try that or what?

OK, I'll be lurking around for the rest of the evening tonight on and off.
I'm on the west coast, so i'll still be up for quite a while.
San Diego to be more precise :)

................md :)

Thank you much and you are very welcome too!
And I can't wait to get a more polished version put out :)

And glad you enjoyed it too, I really worked hard to get the info layed out so that people 
have an understanding of how to "use" the controls, and not just move them around 
aimlessly hoping that they might end up with something they might like LOL

Knowing how a control tool will actuall affect things is always a big step in getting those results that are wanted.

............md :)

No probs :)

And btw, one of the things that I didn't realize was so important that I left out, will be in the next version.
But, just so you know, that part deals with how to keep your file sizes down for your Ivy.
basically, use the very first slider to adjust how your ivy is layed out on your object.
What this basically does, is that it will really make the size of the ivy mor spread out, 
not so much it's real size, which the term implies.
The actual size of the vines and ivy leafs are done with the bottom controls.
The first control is more of a tool for spreading things out, or you could put it 
that it's making les segments per size of your object that it's being applied to, 
thus the smaller file sizes in the final exported Ivy.

Make sense?

Don't crank it up too much with that first slider, a little at a time will work, like a half inch 
or less and just experiment with that, as each object will always very with this control greatly.

Hope this little extra info also adds to what you know? :)

OK, thanx again and like I say, I'll be getting the new version out latr on this week.
This whole week is real busy, but I'll try my best to fit it in there somewhere LOL

And I guess some might not know where to find this cool program, so here's the link:
http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/

Oh, and I reoranized the ReadMe file too, so now it makes better sense.
You can download it as well if you like, here:
http://www.md-arts.com/tut/IvyManual.zip

.........................md :)

Man!, you all are totally awesome!

Thanx a zillion, and yes, I'm a newbie and you all have been very kind and helpfull to me.

I appreciate it lots!

.....................md :)

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Wow!

Thanx!

Where do you all find these sites at anyway?

I keep doing searches in Google and I haven't come up with didly squat!

............................md :)

.

Not sure what's with all the empty replies, but anyway, I've already stated that I've been to Content Paradise and couldn't find anything worth using.

That's why I was asking here for som help.

...........md :)

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Hey, thanx!

That's one down, one more to go :)

And I have the mouse object already, so this ought to work for me, I hope?

......................md :)

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