I just purchased and installed Poser5 after years of P4PP. I was SO GLAD to get rid of the italics on the dials. What a relief. What is PO2 mode like? ::::: Opera ::::

Systematic time trials? Effect on render time, please, compared with other types of shading. ::::: Opera :::::

interested. Please email me or reply to my IM ::::: Opera :::::

Concerning the requirement for permission to include certain buildings in a film... If I am filming a fly-over of Los Angeles, but then I want to crash into a famous building, such as the Capitol Records tower or the Hollywood sign, and/or have some action take place in or around these buildings or (for instance) the Ripley's Believe It Or Not store on Hollywood Blvd.... Can anyone tell me: 1) Is it really true this might be a trademark and/or copyright infringement without permission? 2) How do I find out which buildings are protected? ::::: Opera :::::

Quicktime Pro = $30.00 and you can do a heck of a lot with it, including editing, midi tracks, etc. Quite worth it. www.apple.com ::::: Opera :::::

Citroen spot very cool. I don't know how you know background is fully CGI.... animation is either 100% Mocap (not that there is anything wrong with that!) or 1000% brilliant. I think it is MoCap. ::::: Opera :::::

flmmkrelabs <<The likeness of the Empire State Building in trademarked. I recently found this out while creating images for a television program. However, if you change the window alignment you are fine. The same is true of h Sears Tower. Therefore not all buildings open to the public are safe. >> ynsaen >> ...recently built buildings and boat hulls. Both of these items were recently added to US copyright law (and, by treaty, to all WIPO and Berne convention countries, as well). This is, however, copyright. Also, as noted, several buildings with unique and distinctive appearances (notably, them really tall ones) have trademarks on their likeness. << I'm astonished that buildings in existence in reality, certainly "a real world item", can be either copyrighted or trademarked. If I am doing an animated (or not animated) movie with a flyover scene of Los Angeles, Chicago, NY, etc., I must get permission to film certain real buildings? Is that really possible? If so, where/how do I find out what buildings are protected? ::::: Opera :::::

Yes, I checked out that option..... Still awaiting reply from Turbo Squid. ::::: Opera :::::

Now about 24 hrs since I reqested response. Cannot attain direct contact with model company, tried Googling them, etc. The model is on Turbo Squid and that's who I wrote to. I will give them another day, then ratchet up the urgency of request. ::::: Opera :::::

Well, that software looks fine and the price is within reason. It does say this: "To view/export Maya (ma, mb) files you need a copy of Maya" I don't have Maya. So, now I am going to contact the model maker and ask if I can get him to export the model in some other format, including textures. I guess my choice would be .obj, is that right? Thanks for resonding. ::::: Opera :::::

I lost that card LONG ago. BTW I also had to invest 20 minutes figuring out that if you are working in full shaded mode, you don't see the ground color; it is only revealed when you render. You have to switch to toon shading to see the color. Thanks to the forum again! ::::: Opera :::::

That is unbelievable. Is that a famous Poser trick? I feel like someone just told me how to beat the final boss of Halo 2 or something. Just amazing. Control-g. ::::: Opera :::::

Byrdie, just how do you guys mate, anyway. Is it in the nest or aloft? Can you render an animation? Last night I opened up the Poser5woman and applied the Eternal Judy package to her/it/him and then the Nikki texture. There are dials for the bits. I have not checked 'em out yet. Personally, I prefer the print ad carried for years on the sports pages of the L.A. Times for an impotency clinic. It just shows a woman reaching for her man and says: "Sex is Life." ::::: Opera :::::

**Wednesday morning

** My upgrade to Poser5 arrived yesterday at 5:45 PM. I went to bed at 3:30 AM this morning. That speaks for itself.

My interaction with Curious Labs was favorable. They performed, including answering my calls and emails.

Here at Renderosity I purchased **
EJ by 3Dream, $12.25
EJ - Extra Pak I by 3Dream, $5.95
EJ - Extra Pak II by 3Dream, $5.95
BAT's Lovely Lingerie by BATLAB, $5.00
Nikki So alive! by Posermatic, $11.90**

My goal is and has been to see if I can get on the level of creating cinematic characters in the tradition of 'Romantic Realism." By this I mean: fictional re-creation and representation of actual people, like you might see on the street. My first candidate is "Holly," who is pretty, smart and interesting, but not a supermodel. You would find her perhaps two years into her career as an attorney. I want 'realism' but not hyper-hyper realism. I want the image to call forth in the viewer's mind not someone from a 'possible' world, but rather someone from objective reality. I also want 'romantic' in the sense of someone who has created a positive, proactively valuable life for herself.

I spent a lot of time trying to get Victoria 3 over the last year to win the audition, without success. After my first evening with Poser5Woman, EternalJudy and Nikki, I think I am finally on the first rung of what could be success. I am grateful to Curious Labs, 3Dream and Posermatic for their efforts. I am in a state of humility and respect for the amount of work that has gone into this technology. The attention to detail and exhaustive tool-making involved here deserves to be recognized. My hat is off to all of you.

I did not choose to open Poser5 yet. That learning curve will come, but I knew if I went down that road I would not get a screen test on the first day! So this test was performed in Poser4 with ProPak. I am on Windows XP Home, Pentium4 2.4GHz with 1Gb RAM.

I first attempted to work with the texture that came with EJ. That has promise, but the colouring was not right. I loaded the Nikki texture, but worked with EJ's dials. There are MANY dials! And I find the approach to morphing here quite different and advantageous compared with Vickie (V3, I still have respect for you, but we are just friends for the moment.) P5Woman/3Dream gives the user-modeller access to every feature of the face, exhaustively. I will write more about that another time. Importantly, you get to manipulate her features with exquisite control. For instance, you can model the eyebrows by moving from left to right along the brow and arch and shape it segment by segment. This not only gives you control over your character's default visage, but you can imagine the possibilities for setting human emotion in her face; she can give you 'a look' with her eyebrows, if you know what I mean.

This level of control extends to the eyes, the forehead, the nose, ears, lips chin, etc. etc. Exquisite control. The last thing I will say is: I am grateful to be able to model a character out of symmetry! Yes, symmetry is why we go ga ga over international beauties and supermodels. But the ones who are REALLY captivating to me are the women with the infinite variety of the gene pool in their face, and symmetry is present, but they also have imbalances. More on this at another time.

Anyway, this is just a first shot, I did not work with lighting, or body morphs (she has on Bat's lingerie although you can't see it in the examples.) I set the animation as well as could be intuited without much trial and just let if fly while I got a few hours sleep, so the motions are not rekeyed. I rendered with texture, anti-alias on, 24 fps at 640x360. I was getting a frame every 20 seconds. Hair by Kozoburo.

Here is Holly:

Download short Quicktime animation here, large format, 11.6 MB [patience, 2 min download on high-speed cable modem)
Download short Quicktime animation here, small format, lo res, 1.1 MB

::::: Opera :::::

ok. respond or not, in the den, I am done with this thread here. I will be away-from-keys except on Judy/EJ issues for next 5 days after tonight. I am standing at the door imatiently waiting for my Poser5 upgrade to arrive, which I paid for in good 'ole weak American dollars. ::::: Opera :::::