For some reason my Mac renders about as fast in Vue6i as it did in Vue5i, radiosity does lengthen the render process, but that is the same in any 3d app, due to heavy calculations. But there are many variables to take in account when setting up your scenes to render, by being judicious with settings and not going overboard or blindly accepting defaults you can optimize your render times. By playing with these settngs in both Vue and LW i have been able to reduce render times from hours to minutes. Radiosity is a real time stealer and needs to be set differently for each individual scene, one size does not fit all LOL. That said Vue has a much slower render engine than Lightwave. Ron

On the Mac side i like it, i don't seem to find this major slow down in rendering that was mentioned. The computer im using with Vue6 infinite is just a G4 1.25 with 1,25 Gig ram, nothing super computerish, but works fine. I am going to eventually install Vue onto one of my MacIntel's and see what happens there. But seeing as im still learning Vue, my main app is lightwave, there is no rush. Ron

Since Vue is not a true modeling program why not pick up one of the free modeling apps. Then you can make a cube select each face in turn and apply different surfaces to each face. then you will be able to apply a different planar texture to each faces surface in Vue. By trying do everything in Vue you butt heads with the programs limitations. Almost nobody uses only one app for everything. Ron

Actually it fixed them for me, up till now Vue6i refused to open poser files. Now it finally does. Ron

Some general rules of docking sail ships. Unless there is a strong current approach a dock from the leeward side whenever possible so that your boat is heading into the wind. Basically you turn 180 degrees into the wind to make your sails flap to kill your boats speed. When you turn a boat into the wind in order to coast up to the dock, called shooting, if you turn slowly the boat will carry a lot of speed, called Way, and coast a long distance. But if you jam the helm hard over you will kill the boats way and she will coast a short distance. How much speed a given ship carries depends on her weight and size. A skipper must know his boat. In a strong current running against the wind the dock is approached on the run from the windward side with shortened sail , usually jib alone, to reduce speed, immediately prior to landing the sails are dropped to kill headway. Bow on approaches to docks are dangerous and require perfect timing, approach is made at moderate speed with sails slightly luffing so that the vessel ideally comes to complete stop at the dock. Other docking options are to come to a dead stop a distance from the dock drop anchor and let the wind slowly drift the ship towards the dock, by slowly letting out anchor line you have a controlled movement up to the dock. The anchor can also be used to assist in leaving the dockside by hauling her in, pulling the ship away from the dock. Option 2 complete stop a short distance from the dock and use of tow line to oxen or dock side capstans to reel the ship into berth. However with big cargo ships they usually dropped anchor in the harbor and used barges to ship cargo to and from shore, a lot easier to dock and much easier to get under way, also some ports did not have enough depth along side the quay to accommodate a fully laden big ships deep draft, so she had no option but to anchor in the harbour. Hope this helps, Ron

You dont seem to realize that you can run windows on the IntelMacs with either Parallels or bootcamp. That means you dont have to replace all your windows software that uses XP. Yes the Mac can run just about every OS out there. Ron

Good to see some resolution coming out of this Sean. Ron

There is way to much of this type of thing going on these days. If a person were to actually contact the original model makers you might possibly be able to work out a profit sharing deal with them on poserising models then selling the product. But no, these people think that by slapping a different texture on a pilfered model no one will notice. I guess low class equals stupid. Sorry but it just frosts me that they think i'm that naive and that they can get away with both shafting me and the models originator, all for a couple of bucks. SCUM! Ron

Acadia, Those freebie alien models were created by the lightwave modelers in the freebie links, the Alien Space jockey's modeling was shown from satrt to finish in posts at Lw3d by Sean Kennedy. Like wise the narcissus, these guys are pros, why would they rip off some poor amateur, when they can model it better themselves? These models that are being brokered on es3d.com are the rip offs. Really nasty as the originals are free. Ron

Attached Link: Foamy shoreline tut

If you are looking to convert rsr files to pngs for the Mac do a search in Versiontraker for XShruggy. It does a good job of converting, will scan all your runtime and convert all files found in one go. It is not free but cheap. The demo version will only convert a few rsr files at a time. Ron

Art is not about technique, or tools or medium used. That is technical skill.

Art is emotion, and the passing of that emotion to the viewer. If a render has an emotional effect on the viewer then it has succeeded in becoming Art, if not then that render is a technical illustration.

Many of the renders in the gallery do not have this emotional content, and even though very well done technique wise fail to evoke any emotional response.

A good case in point are the many portraits in the galleries, too many are just a shout of look at me aren't i good looking. Don't get me wrong, a lot of these portraits are fabulous works of technical skill and sweat. They just fail emotionally.

Some have stood out from the crowd, i remember one from years ago of a girl with an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, The expression on the girls face plainly let you into her mind to feel which direction she was leaning. This piece made me laugh out loud, and has stuck with me all this time. Now i can't remember the Artist or the title of the render, but i can see it still in my mind, and feel that humour, as if i were looking at it now.

You need to put apiece of your soul into your renders, whether humour or compassion, fear or anger. Not all great art is technically outstanding, some is down right primitive LOL. But it all does one thing well it stirs our souls.

My 2 cents Canadian. 1.8 cents U.S.

Ron

Garee, well done :-) I'll leave this conversion in your more than capable hands,my understanding of Poser Hierarchies is minimal at best LOL RonGC

Converted the LWG Hammerhead to LW 5.6 format in LW 8.3 then imported it into Poser 6 as a test. Poser6 handles the format perfectly without excess smoothing, big surprise to me:-)
Included is a pic without the texures, will add them over the next few minutes. Just waiting for permission from the creator, Fabio Passaro, to share this model.

Not sure if this model will work in Poser 4 due to the smoothing process it uses.

RonGC

Yeah im sure the really good Hackers wouldn't want the money or the prestige of being the one to crack the Mac. LOL. Seriously though i am glad to see someone starting to take action against the internet parasites ;-) There are enough hassles in life without malicious spyware.. Now if we can get rid of telemarketers, that would be a major public service as well LOL Ron