You did the staircase demo scene?! That's the most useful thing I've found. Let me take a detailed look through your gallery, I'm sure I'll find some things I'd like to hack in. :O)

You seem to have given up on Blender/Vray and are sticking to Vue. How come?

It's certainly under consideration. I don't mind paying for quality. Still, it's great for some things but material settings, or more to the point, getting support for them is an issue. You mention trans maps, reflections and so on. I see renders where the reflections are very well done, but those who do them aren't really talking. I can get the effects I want in that regard in Povman, which is what I use now, standing on my head. Great skin shaders and mat settings. Light and focal blur behave great in Vray though.

Yeah, transmaps are an issue. The betas expire? That isn't good news, it'll take me forever to get it going the way I want . . . oh well. If the price was reasonable, they could sell a boatload. Close to a $1000 USD is heavy, but I'd strongly consider a few hundred.

Lots of bright and vivid color.

I still think the best included Poser characters are P5 Don and Judy. The topology could have been a lot better and the eyes didn't fit in the head very well but they still had a lot going for them.

Quote - > Quote - If the person spending the money is causing the problems, they get more slack. No question about it.

And whose rule is THAT? Yours?

Gimme a break.

That's a rule at a site with paid content. Told to me by someone who moderated there. If I ran a site, I'd do the same thing, within reason.

Quote - Dude, they OWN the fourm. It's their property. They can do whatever the heck they want to. Honestly I don't blame them. They're there to make money, and keep customers happy. If one person is making life difficult and ignoring their rules, it's bad for business.

If the person spending the money is causing the problems, they get more slack. No question about it.

Quote - nope. and your free to shop as well.... ;)

Of course! You're always free to spend money and sites rarely block anyone completely . . . they want the numbers for any ad sales. :O)

Quote - > Quote - lol  Frankly every site should have a rule: if you want to moderate, you can't post. Period.

Oh you're going to be popular around here!

lol   I never had a problem here and don't go to the daz site. That's just a general opinion based on some other sites I've been on, none of them related to CGI. I've often seen moderators who act as trolls or in other instances, if there's a debate and the moderator takes a side, other posters feel free to be extra rude towards those with an opposing view.

lol  Frankly every site should have a rule: if you want to moderate, you can't post. Period.

Quote - I still use Poser 6.

Yup

Actually a separate pass for texture and morph, not necessarily using the same ref picture is a good approach as well.

As a suggestion Laslo, I think you need to build a bit of an online community of the silent majority of satisfied customers with samples of work, perhaps with a blog somewhere. People who are unhappy always make the most noise.

This is a quick and dirty job, one pass same pic for morph and texture:

Quote - OK ... since there hasn't been any more input on the challenge I just thought I'd post my initial results in FaceGen that I did earlier.

Here's the results that I got after about five minutes in FaceGen (half of that being the photo fit calculations, the other half setting the points and adjusting a couple of dials for the shape of the nose).

Now ... these are as they appear in FaceGen. What I normally do after this is bring the morph into Poser and then use Victoria's face morphs to fine-tune the facial features. And I would definitely work on the shape of the nose/nostrils, chin, and mouth with the dials. And maybe the cheekc a tad. Either that, or I'd take it into a morphing program.

But that is largely because I'm really picky. LOL  Even the default morph is quite recognizable as Cate Blanchett (to me, anyway).

My gallery shows a lot of images where I use the word "UnVicky." Now you know what I use to "unVicky Vicky."   If you didn't know this was V4 when looking at the textured versions, would you suspect that it was?

Facegen is terrific, no question. The only thing that really needs a fix is the jaw width and that's usually a native morph in most heads anyway. I'll take a shot at Cate in Face Shop just for the hell of it. I'd say a patient effort takes about 20 minutes rather than 5.

Quote - The two Cate Blanchett pics that Vestmann posted have very good even lighting, and the front view is marvelous, and the 3/4 view would probably also suffice as a side view in FaceShop.

Still open to other suggestions too, but I'm pretty gung ho on Cate Blanchett. 8-)

She's not the most recognizable actress and seldom looks the same twice. If I didn't have the name before looking at the pics posted, I'm not sure I would have known who she was.

Quote - OK I have reinstalled FaceGen Modeller and Customizer, and am awaiting the authorization keys so that I can move on the challenge.

Michael Jackson?

Barack Obama?

George Bush?

Alan Alda (well maybe not, there aren't any good hi res pics of him anywhere! But it WOULD be funny seeing as it's a running forum joke) ...

Jessica Alba?

Alicia Keyes? (she's very pretty!)

Hillary Clinton?

Michelle Obama?

Sarah Palin?

Who, who, who?

Whatever ... PLEASE no Angelina. She has been done WAY too much!

I like the Alan Alda idea, but it seems he wears glasses a lot these days and that makes textures tricky. Whoever it is, there should be lots of good hi res pics available for the textures. I think women generally are tougher to get good likenesses on than men. Doesn't matter much to me otherwise.