I don't think the output is as hires as needed for a Poser figure. And the mapping is different. But I too thought of this. It is a great feature and maybe if we ask nice the folks at CL will write some code in it that will output higher res images. Because it is a good basis for a great map for Poser figures. It would help a lot of people to create custom maps of themselves and celebrities with minimal fuss. I do think that there is already a program that does this? Jump in anyone who knows of this. And yes AL is mostly compatible with Poser. James

I'd love to know also. Since I am totaly clueless when it comes to the Joint editor. James

I just purchased AL the other day. While I haven't had much time to play with it, it is a good program. As for using PPP to achieve the same things ... you can, BUT you'll have to use ONLY low polygon models, and then you won't get great results since the joints on most of the models after exporting are strange. I've said in other threads that I think the program is a bit high priced. But if you've got the extra money. Buy it. It will save you a lot of headaches. AL also comes with many things that PPP does not have. I think that you'll need AL and PPP to get the best results. I hope that CL (Curious Labs) will continue to upgrade the program. Right now it's in my opinion the first pass and could use some improvment. But that will come. I remember Poser One. See how much that has improved and become one of the BEST programs around for a small price. BTW if Curious Labs reads this. I've noticed in the above "weirdmoose" the fingers are exploding. And Adobe needs to get Atmosphere out of Beta and fix many things too. You should be able to just place a NEW avatar in a folder and have it accessed from there instead of having to get it from an FTP site. But this may be so everyone has access to the geometry. I don'y know, since I'm not a programmer. ;-) I hope that answered some of your questions. James

Thanks Steve. I know how you must be bombbarded with questions, gripes and the whatnot. Well I bit the bullet and just bought AL. (I hope when the MAC version comes out I can get that for a discount giggle) It's a good program, but (there's always a but) I have to say I'm a teeny bit dissapointed. But I was a teeny bit dissapointed when Poser 1 first came out too. But I see the possibilities in AL that I saw in Poser so long ago. While there are templates for all the hair props, there are none for anything else. That means copying the pp2s to Poser loading them in, saving the obj file and UVmapping to get a template. Please post a templates file. And the inability to "Zoom" in on the figure/avatar while in all stages is annoying. When creating textures it is essential to get as close to the figure as possible even if it's only a lores representation. But I may have missed somthing and this is there and I just haven't found in the GUI or help file. But other than that, as I said before, I see some long nights and fun avatars being spawned from AL. As with Poser, we always push the envelope and find ways to improve and create new and exciting things with a great tool to start with. I.E. The many morph targets that so many have done for Poser. And the great textures that many of us have created. I'm sure as the program evolves, there will be some much more one can do with it (built in stuff). Version 5 is already in the works right? chuckle I hope this didn't come accross negetive, because it's not. On the contrary, I ho-heartly recommend AL, even though it's still too expensive IMHO. James

In the menu Use Linits: Figure>Use Limits Selecting this will toggle it on and off. But beware, I've found that at times it will NOT toggle OFF. Figure>Use Inverse Kinematics>Right Arm, Left Arm, Right Leg, and Left Leg Legs are on by default. You can toggle them off here. For some reason I remember this being a fix for this problem with the P4 figures, but I have no idea with the Millennium figures. James

Does a BVH use joint parameters? Isn't it just the position, rotation and movement contained in a BVH? I don't know, sorry for posing another question. But setting the "Use Limits" may help. That way it may help with strange bends. Also turn off IK and see if that helps. Also try changing the "z" or "x" (I think these are import BVH parameters) when importing. James

I do see great potential in these worlds. As for the quality and all the perks of a bigger engine, well that's got to be hard to supply to the vast amounts of 56k modem users. Yes I too would like to see the beauty of a Quake-style world, but for that to happen it would again be hard to supply over a low speed connection (And BTW even Quake jumped on the MAC band wagon, I still hope to see this come to the MAC. But as I've seen in the past (VRML for one), 3D content was extreamly slow to become MAC friendly or non exsistant). Getting back to the potential ... Imagine showing off your work in a 3D environment, gathering your out-of-state and out-of-country friends to come sip a cup of virtual coffee and talk about things to come, latest software, discoveries and techniques you've figured out. Rooms filled with your latest artwork, rooms to sit and ponder the view and maybe a room dedicated to tutorials ... the possibilities I assume can be endless. I too trully hope that this time, the 3D web experiance takes off. Going back to a statement I had made in another thread. I remember the "Palace" experience. A visual chat room with 2D graphics. It was so nice to have visuals instead of text only. I saw grat potential in that too, but it never took off as expected. Best of luck to Adobe and CL. I would like to see this soar. And I hope that it stays inexpensive so that the hobbiest can create as well as participate. Thanks PhilC for also pointing out that one can export from Poser Pro Pack. But there is no manual for the plugin and it would be nice to know what parameters to use when exporting and if the plugin could tell you the vertice count instead of just a percentage. BTW a small bug, or not in the plugin -- it seems that you can only export the geometry at 80%, but that's a CL or ViewPoint question. But I guess that's wht AL was created ;-) I just don't have the extra $70.00 for AL at this time and I'd like to wait if the MAC version ever sees the light of day. James Steve: Who can I get to answer all the questions I have posed in the other thread?

I've had this program ever since they first came out with the MAC version. I was at the MAC Expo many years ago and saw it demonstrated and immeadiatly pulled out my wallet to get it., But it got shelved for a very long time. But now since the upgrade, I've decided to start working with it again. It is not the easiest program to learn, but not the hardest either. So I'll be hopfully working with it agian. IT really has some fantastic things that it can do. But even in the image you have shown, tou'll notice the blurry edges. This is due to vertice painting which does not translate well to render in other programs. There is a work around to this in one of their MANY tutorials. Though I'd bring that up. And I have to add. As for "how many other companies have active participants in the general user groups?...and the creator himself?" You WILL notice that DAZ and Curious Labs take a very active part in this forum. Very active, did I mention very? ;-) James

I never claimed that it was a game engine. I was only comparing it in a small way. And the ease of creating a world with Atmosphere opposed to trying to tackle something as hard as a game. I will leave that up to the proffessionals ;-) But thanks for the info. Oh and BTW, I don't like shoot-em-up games. I prefer adventure and puzzle solving. I always wanted to do a game that involved a 3D engine, but an explorable and interactive world that you'd have to interact correctly and solve things. That's a little vague but the gist. And Steve, is there documentation on the export plugin for viewpoint for Poser? I keep getting BLUE people and wierd axis points (rotation axis gets placed strangly). But at least with the Poser 4 Lores guy the joints look better. James

I'm still working up to convincing myself. I think I could do some great things here. I've always wanted to do a 3D game but I'm not a programmer. And even with some of the programs out there, I still feel intimidated. But this could be the "second best thing". But more and more questions come to mind. Can I create my own meshes? Or are we limited to the meshes that come with AL? Does AL export .aer files or .mts, or both? Maybe a complete white paper on the site. Or the manual. BTW Phil, I was at your world and I'm always amazed at how you jump on the latest things and do such a great job. I know you mentioned that you just threw it together, but it was inspiring to me anyway. James

Ok, a few more notes. Steve, even though I'm not totaly convinced quite yet I'll shed some light (some problems) on creating an Avatar with Poser Pro Pack Viewpoint plugin. Here is what I get when "Exporting" a Viewpoint model from Poser Pro Pack. As you can see, the joints in the shoulders are extreamly unpleasent. And where the BLUE skin tone is coming from I have NO idea. But other than that, the resulting mesh is pretty good. Notice the detail in the tee shirt (it seems to have kept the edge/trim detail. BTW, this was created with the default plugin settings. NOTE: Plugin seems to not allow you to change the geometry setting on the MAC. Remains 80. The output is fairly small (around 288k for the .mts and 104k for the .mtx) but I don't know how that'll fair in Atmosphere. SO what I'm saying ...Is if one wants to create an Avatar, I'm sure that Avatar Lab would eliminate these problems and you'd end up with a better end result. So points for AL, 1/2 a point for PPP. While PPP (Poser Pro Pack) will allow you to export the nessassary .mtx and .mts files (and I even imported them into Atmosphere), I'm sure they're not as optimized as they would be if done in AL. So there you have it. I hope that Curious Labs/ViewPoint will fix these little bugs in the plugin and I do see why I'd rather do it in AL. AL must have these bugs worked out? But that still leaves the question of ... Can I use my textures from Poser in AL. I"ve made some great textures for Mike and Vicky and would love to use them. They took a long time and what a plus to be able to use them in AL. But I doubt it since it seems that AL will use completely different meshes. Thanks agin for letting me Kvetch ;-) James

I have by no means "condemed" it. I was just trying to get as much info as possible. And trying to determine the pluses and cons. I have indeed tried it. As I said , I do own a PC too. After several romps around, I only ran into 1 person (so far). And of course that avatar was one of the canned avatars built into Atmosphere. I just (as a lot of people do) have fears about spending money. I'm disabled and have to make my monthly checks stretch. Though I do seem to spend a lot on programs. Some which are collecting dust or haven't seen the light of day for a milennium. ;-) But many like Poser I use everyday. I also think that the "Limited" time only is a little premature. Since I don't think enough people have been introduced to this, let alone using it on a wide spread basis. But I like to Kvetch, so don't mind me too much. Have a great time at the movies! I want to see that one soon. I've just seen Shrek and Star Wars Episode 1 and am blown away at the rendering! James

Well as I feared. "Not available for MAC at this time" But I should have known this, since Atmosphere is also "Not available for the MAC". But that aside. Riddle me this ... Are all the avatars stagnent? Can they move? I know that on Phil's world he has avatars in an animation loop. But all other avatars/surfers just stand, jump and glide in their origional pose. And can't you just export a MTS (Viewpoint/Metastream) file and do the same thing? Right now I don't see enough information (screen shots and maybe a simple animated gif or two) on the site to shell out $70 (I am one of the lucky ones that also own a PC, but use my MACs much more) for something that I might be able to do with Pro Pack alone. I realize that this would take away the tedium of doing it on your own, but you should explain why and maybe a comparison to doing it on your own and with Avatar Lab. Sorry to sound so negative, but $70 is quite alot to spend on an online persona. I used to love "The Palace" chat rooms. They were visual and far more interesting than a text chat. But that too was interesting to begin with, but then the novelty wore off. Until this is more "The norm" for online chatting and available for the MAC I don't see me going for it now. Go ahead Steve, convince me to do it! ;-) James

Oops, I forgot about Strata. But it too like so many went back in the closet and is gathering dust. It just turned out hard to use and crashed alot.

I hate to say this, but we're (MAC people) are out of luck. There is NO good FREE modeler out there that I have come accross and that I would reccomend. I have been searching since 1985. I have bitten the bullet and purchased many Mac programs out there because of this. I now use Infini-D (what it was before it was Ray Dream), Carrara and ZBrush for all my modeling. Well I just dusted off ZBrush again and plan to work with it again. I even tried using PC emulator software to use some of the many free PC modelers. But that was just too slow. Sorry, I hope you get a positive answer, I'd like to know also. ;-) James Oh and YES UVMaooer is for the MAC, it's not so much an earlier version, in that it doesn't have a lot of the perks. I.E. Vertice selection, and auto grouping.