Questor:

"The very limitations of poser preclude any "real" art coming out of it without postwork to correct the very functional errors created by the program's limitations"

But this is true for EVERY 3D program, either a modeller or a renderer or a texturizer.

Noone who is considered a good 3D artist in every art site uses a single app to make his/her images, AFAIK there's always some postwork involved in Photoshop, at least; don't even think about those that pose the figure in Poser and bring it in another workspace, either for a simple render or for adding the ambient around.

Do you really think that an image done in Photoshop alone is "instant art", only because the artist used Photoshop alone???
Returning to the Michelangelo's example, do you really think that the simple use of a scalpel made him an instant artist? Or it was his skill in using it???
Yes, you can laugh at the view of the words "Poser" and "Michelangelo" in the same line, but just think about what he could have made with a Poser base...

And finally, always remember this: if a Maya, Max, or Lightwave user could model quickly a realistic human mesh in the app and pose it, Poser wouldn't even exist and everything about 3D art would be called "pornography".

Rubbermatt:

Some times ago I made a joke about Mac G4s used in the lowest floors of a great firm, when the owner wuold have played with a 2-floor-high Cray in his personal office; the joke was around my friend being a great firm owner...not that that would happen in a couple of days, mind you :-) he is really young...

Suddenly, one Mac entusiast sat at me telling "Mac is used for so and so...here and here...", in a pointless defense of something that would have been clearly outdated at the time my friend would even have became famous.

Problem is: that moron is a PROFESSIONAL, a really big one too, and he sure uses his tools for his works, all his apps are regularly registered, and so on.

Point taken?
If someone is anal about something, pro or not pro, he is anal, period.
He didn't even accept my excuses, he didn't even listened to other board members telling him that that was clearly a joke...

Questor, I admit that most of the Poser work is on the edge of pornography, but I have some thoughts on it. Consider what a Max, Maya, or Lightwave user could do if he/she can quickly build a realistic mesh (and I mean "realistic", not some pipes held together with a faulty bone mesh)... Do you remember Stahlberg's images? I think they were the sexiest images I've ever seen...and he didn't used Poser for sure!!! So, given the difficulties to build a realistic human mesh in a 3D modeller, it's normal to see Poser as a "porn toy", and we know well, sex sells. I don't think then that all the "porn gadget" received by 3DMags were built directly in Poser, too :-D That said, just watch at the main subject of past artists: it was the human body. Goya's paintings, with their overweighted models, are on the same level as Picasso's ones; Michelangelo could be called a pornographer with today's standards; in the Systin Chapel are painted children too. The Reinassance palaces are filled with nude figures, and the Greek main decoration is the female body. I know, there's almost nothing that can made these images and statues a real "sexy image", not with actual standards, but I read many pamphlets about how sexy these images could have been to the viewers of the time. So, you can have a realistic human figure, you have a standard about sex and its appearances, and you are very likely to see a "sexy" image done with Poser. But as I said, just imagine what a Maya user could do if he can build a human mesh quickly... I want respect for what I do, not for what others do with the same program I'm using; or I can smack down a Lightwave user for what Stahlberg had done with it...

If they could help in avoiding the "breasts-nailed-to-the-outer-shoulder" feel, they could be useful. And yes, something about the no-waist Vicky figure, thanks :-)

This is the best one could get on V3, with only sterumnarrow and negative rotatein, but be aware: when you start fiddling with the sizes, you're entering a dark alley.
And as you can see, that "breasts attached with nails to the shoulders" feeling is still there.

I'm not even speaking of the "laydown" morphs et al, I think they are there only to get a name...luckily adp001 has addressed this problem :-)

[rant mode on]
Now you can see why Poser images are boring sometimes: after too many minutes searching for the view and the clothing you want, you haven't the mood to start correcting the shapes with so many morphs available and so many flaws to correct, and then you go out with another NVIATWAS :-DDD
[rant mode off]

Message edited on: 08/21/2004 06:14

It's a fact that the younger appearance is a turn-on for a male (and for a female too :-) ); problem is, how many younger???

Using attention, you can always tell apart a 14 years old girl with make-up and a thight dress from a 18 one with a large gown, even if the 14 one is a very attractive girl you'll never say "that's the woman for me"; but if you are seeing a 17-18 years old girl and a 25-26 one with identical make-up and dress and attractiveness, you can easily fall for the first...until the second is a real beauty (I'm speaking from a "normal" point of view, pedophilia is another matter and can't make its way in this).
Not speaking about women who look younger than their real age, i.e. my wife is around 30 years old and noone says that she is older than 25...go figure :-P

Now speaking about cartoons.
We have seen too many "young girls" in the actual cartoon scene, and I add "too young" too.
If you want a cartoon look you must use a "too young" character, and in today's anime (or general cartoon movie made for young audience) a 14-15 years old girl is already searching for eternal love...and her love is ALWAYS a 19-20 years old man/boy, even older sometimes, but with the look of a teen.
Obviously, when they found/catch their love, they're already grown to be 18 at least...without changing their appearance.

So I'm not suprised to view this kind of characters when made specifically for a cartoon look, and I'm speaking about "The Girl", Neftoon Gal, Sara, Koshini and the rest of the gang; the real problem could arise when someone wants to use them in a real-like render or movie, I could be a bit confused if I'll see an embrace involving Alexa and Mike3... :-)))

P.S. - If my eyes aren't already too bad, I find the new Koshini2 to be much more older-appearing than the original Koshini, doesn't it? If so, even DAZ is concerned about this matter, or they are searching a way to introduce "The Girl" as a younger character than their old cartoon ones: which one???
Obviously, only if "The Girl" is really on its way to the Poser world...

Too many items on the main runtime, perhaps? Here I have default folders, !DAZ morphs and figures, and nothing more; all the rest is in separate categorized runtimes. Well, this is the last resort...next, it will be a disk cleanup and defrag, then...uhm...a voodoo ritual??? :-) Seriously, these are the last things I can think, then no more ideas sorry.

Search for the "no content paradise" trick and use it. Then you can search for the ynsaen tricks over at RDNA and a sticky post over at PoserPros about stability and speed issues. For me, these brought a quicker startup and more stability; not sure for rendering speed, but overall now Poser "appears" to run faster and smoother on my system (Athlon 2.6+ and 1 gig RAM).

I have no problem with SR4 myself, but you can try this. First, make a copy of the Poser5 folder including subdirs (if you have disk space, obviously), and call it "Poser 5 copy" or whatever. Then, try to install SR4 on this folder changing the path in the installer, and open Poser via the exe file here and not from the start menu; as the only entries I found in the registry that are Poser related are the PZ3 default application and some links to help and readmes, I think it should work normally and you have the original version still intact (apart from the paths in the registry and the links in the start menu, now supposedly pointing to the "copy" folder). Optionally, if you don't want to screw up the registry or the start menu, you can even install SR4 on the original folder; then, if something goes wrong, you simply re-copy the backup folder over this original one and everything would return to the previous version. Hope this help.

Karen, I'm not offended at all, sure :-) You have a point, but I think it's a weak point. The "money maker" of a talk show is the sequence of images and sounds, a single image without sound isn't so powerful; fact is, I saw many images taken from shows and reworked trying to make jokes about, and I never heard about harassments for the autors. Note that I'm speaking in general, not only about the whole WWW thing; TV satyr often uses popular shows ambients for its purpose, for example, and never (or almost never) gets sued (let alone the few cases in which the judge rejected the sue...). If we let pass this concept, we all are in a big trouble. And as I noted, if you poserize a talk show image you can be sued for trying to imitate something copyrighted: talk show base is a chair, a table and a microfone, with some people around them....ALL the talk shows...so you must be sure not to copy exactly a table, and a chair, and a microfone from none of them. Wait again: I can realize the potential trouble for the admins here, I can understand the motivations around this choice, I'm only ranting about all that "witch hunting" and "money hunting" I'm seeing around, and not only here at 'rosity, ok?

What? A public image...is copyrightable??? I mean, it was publicly aired from a show, it's only an image from a HUGE sequence of images, and it can be copyrightable??? So, what's next? Banning of TVs and videorecorders? Then, banning of EVERY stuff capable in capturing an image of a real thing, such as photographic cameras and camcorders? Then, no more pencils, pens, watercolors... AFAIK, when a public person go, well, public, as Lettermann in his show, then his image is no more covered by copyright, otherwise I could force every person with some resemblance to my face to go change his... Actually, if his face is copyrightable, he can quit doing shows as he can gain WAAAAYYYY more money suing all the newspapers, sites and so on that have his face in them, from the very start of his career. Oh, are you worried about the actual "real show ambience"? Eh, so next no more satyr (???), no more jokes about every public person or program or show, the politicians can catch you only for a one time spelling of the "Congress" word... I think this is going too much farter than the right measure. P.S. - And if you change the talk show pic with a poserized one, be sure not to resemble ANY of the real talk shows, as they can sue you for using their "idea"...bah!

Well Mac, I know you live in Italy as me, so you might know the situation here... The web advertising isn't so efficient, very few Italians click on the banners anymore: 90% of the ads are directed to the Anglo/American world, another 8% is directed to German/French people, the last 2% is meant to be seen (and to advert) by other countries...among them is Italy. So, what Italian webmarketers do? A whole bunch of flashing, moving, rolling, jumping stuff, vertically placed, so you MUST see a bit of it wherever you are on the page. And there is nothing more annoying when reading something than a moving image around your field of view...you are forced to watch it even if you don't want to. Next, I (at least I) have some problem with the banner servers: seven times out of ten they don't respond to requests, blocking the visualization of the page until the timeout (do you know they're the very first links called on the page code?), and this timeout is very long, around 10 seconds...worst, sometimes there are two or even three banner calls... My solution? A 2,000 lines long hosts file: when I find a banner server, I put its address on this file with 127.0.0.1 as IP, so when it is called it quickly shows nothing, only a red cross in IExplore and a blank space on Opera...done!!! Even if there's some sites which don't link to external banner servers, I got rid of around 90% of the advertising on the web (100% if you consider only the Italian web).

Thanks for the explanation. Going to recall infos from my Nuclear Phisic books...just kidding :-)))

Great effort :-) Now you can see why animators are WELL paid by cartoon studios :-D Just a thought: has the target to be close to the body or can it be placed anywere (with reason, obviusly)? And if it is too distant to be reached by the seeker, what's the possible outcome? A perfectly straight arm for example? Or a straight arm not too stright (almost bent), which in final could look more natural? Thank you.

Attached Link: http://www.schlabber.org

Not that it's too difficult to make a scuba diving pose: get a laying pose, adjust arms and shins, and you're done :-)
When I build this kind of poses myself, I tweak the dials for around a minute only, it isn't really so difficult expecially if you can find some references (not too hard to find, too...).

Then if you want some "posing underwater" poses, as far as I could see, sometimes a sitting pose lightly tweaked can do the job; some models can pose as they're in open air, standing and so on...so get a standing pose and made the environment :-)