You are right.  I did a bit of playing around with loosening the fit inside VF so the clothing was slightly further away from the body, and the simulation time went way down.

So for those who are having simulation time problems, it appears to be a result of the default fit being a bit too close to the body.  Loosen the fit and the improvement can be dramatic.

Quote - See my post here, I finally got rid of the long sim times

Not sure how you got rid of long sim times from the tutorial link you supplied.  There is really nothing there useful in optimizing the sim time.  I've gone through all those steps and the recommended steps in the pdf for setting up the cloth room sim, and I'm still getting sim times between 212 to 580 seconds per frame.

I do note that one should use the lower res versions of the Poser figures when doing the simulation as that does definitely have an impact on sim times.  But it doesn't eliminate the problem.

That said, the cloth items are already properly draped for the figure when you export from VF and import to Poser, so if one wanted to take a shot at converting to a conforming figure rather than doing a cloth sim, that would work fairly well.

Hi. The attached image may help to better visualize the results you can get with Facegen and the Customizer. In this image I have pre-fitted the DAZ David head, neck, left and right eyes, and teeth to the default Facegen mask. NOTE that I did not take the time necessary to make a perfect fit to the mask as this was only an initial trial run. The first portion of the image on the left shows the default Facegen head and a dialog with options to select other models. In this case I am loading the customized DAZ David, which is shown in the top middle image. If I'd taken the time to do a perfect fit I would have had to round out the jaw a bit (it's too close to square in this case). In particular, note the base of the neck. When you run your face through the customizer, you select some base vertices in the head or neck that will remain in a fixed position and will not morph with the customization settings. This is very important, because when you then load this model back into Poser as a morph target, these vertices must remain in the exact same location as the original head or you will end up with breaks in the mesh. On the top right image, I have simply pushed the generate button to generate a random image. The options you can obtain from this are far superior and faster, in my opinion, than dialing new morph targets within Poser. On the bottom middle image I have taken a side and front image from a Farscape tv show fan site of the primary character John Crighton (actor Ben Browder) and applied the images through Facegen photofit to the DAZ head. Do some searches on the web and you will see that the resemblance is _very_ close, though not exactly spot on (again, mainly due to the fact that I did not take the time necessarily to properly fit the model to the Facegen mask). On the bottom right image, I have taken a side and front photo of a friend and used photofit to apply to the DAZ head. This shows the results that can be obtained with a wider head and jawline. In particular note how the vertices at the base of the neck (previously specified as fixec vertices during facegen customization) do not move at all. Each of these customized heads can then be imported as morph targets. Now, importing these new faces as morph targets can be tricky at first. To fit the DAZ David face to the facegen mask, I first imported the model into 3DS Max and did my fitting. Now, since I wanted to morph the head, neck, left and right eyes and teeth all as one object, I then had to group the objects together in Max and then save them as a single .obj file (rather than individual .obj files for each portion of the figure). I then imported this single .obj into Facegen customizer. Note also that by doing so the scale did change as the Poser scale is much to small to work with in 3DS Max (I basically imported the model in at 100 times the original Poser model scale). This means that I can not simply export the heads from FaceGen to a .obj and then try to apply those directly to the Poser model inside Poser, for two reasons. First, at 100x the original Poser scale, the head would explode. Not a pretty sight. Second, the .obj file exported from Facegen is a single head object, and you can only apply morph targets from the specific object containing the exact same number of vertices. So to take these heads into Poser I must first save them to a .obj file inside Facegen, load that .obj into 3DS Max and then apply these as a morph target to a grouped version of the head, neck, eyes and teeth in 3DS max (so that each individual element gets the appropriate morph). I then save each component out to a separate .obj file (one for the head, one for the neck, one for each eye, one for the teeth) and upon the export reduce the scale to .01 so that they fit back to the original Poser scale. So, no, it isn't exactly a straightforward process. It does take time and it is easy to make mistakes in the import/export and model grouping processes. But once it is done, it is a lot more powerful, and you can end up with morphs that very very closely resemble a live person.

There have been several other threads posted on this subject that can provide better detail on the pros and cons of the subject, but there is overall one key point that you need to take into account, and that is not the high polycount of the Poser models. Most Poser models are licensed for use in stills and animations. You may not redistribute the models without the prior approval of the original content creator, nor can you redistribute modifications (such as reduced resolution versions). There are some free models out there that may make an acceptable base from which you can work. One such example would be the Project Human figures which exist under an open source license. But other figures, such as the DAZ figures and the stock figures that come with Poser are out of bounds for such modification and redistribution, whether in .X format or otherwise. Such restrictions are not limited to the human figures alone, but also apply to the clothing articles as well. You may find some free items that are not restricted as such, but the majority will not be redistributable, even in modified form. There are a few games that have worked around such limitations by rendering images and animation frames inside Poser and converting these images to animated 2D sprites. I've even seen one that somehow manages to cleverly mask those 2D sprites such that they look nearly 3D. Something like that seems to fit well within the licenses of the commercial figures. There are other options available on the market, however. For example, there are a couple of DarkMatter content packs from The Game Creators which are already in .X format (though they are of very low quality) which may be used in your own project without restriction. There are also more and more content packs becomming available at sites such as GarageGames that can be of downright stunning quality. Perhaps not on the level of Poser, but then, by the time you reduce an 80K poly model to about 3K polys for use in a game, it won't be of the quality level of Poser anylonger either :) Hope this info is of use.

Actually, by the very definition of the word "animation", it is indeed animation. animation Pronunciation Key (n-mshn) n. 1. The act, process, or result of imparting life, interest, spirit, motion, or activity. Maybe it's not traditional animation, but if were going to be purists about it...

Attached Link: http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/

Hmm, this looks interesting, as well. And not that expensive, comparatively speaking. No idea how well it works, though.

Attached Link: http://www.credo-interactive.com

If you're interested in purchasing some pre-packaged motion capture, take a look at Credo Interactive's products, specifically their Mega Mocap 2 bundles. Of course, you'll always be limited to what you can do with pre-made motion capture, but it's a good start.

Attached Link: http://www.3duniverse.co.za/home.asp

Here's the link to 3DUniverse. Also, Apollo Maximus is sold at RuntimeDNA

As a comparison for anyone still following this thread, this image is an attempt at a Clothes Converter version of the same FireDancer clothing conversion from V3 to Jessi. What it did convert right, seemed to convert better (the top, vest, belt, etc - though there is some wonky stretching around the base of the skirt that isn't really visible in the image). But note the hair in outer space, the ear rings gone to who knows where, and that green splash around the hips is from the anklets. So, again, it just seems to me that each has different strenghts and weeknesses, and they both do some things better than the other.

I'd say both tools are useful, as each has different strengths and weaknesses. From one Universal Mesh figure to another, I'd say Clothes Converter is superior. But for converting between other non-Universal Mesh figures, Wardrobe Wizard wins. This image is a conversion of the FireDancer from RDNA to Jessi using Wardrobe Wizard. It was quick and relatively painless, though there are a couple of small problems with the bottom of the skirt, and I found that trying to convert the jewelry did not go too well. This took longer to render than it did to convert.

Attached Link: http://www.panicstruckpro.com/revelations/

On the subject of effects and Star Wars, I've been rather blown away by the talent that went into a recently released 47 minute fanfic, Revelations. The acting isn't the best, but it is all volunteer and isn't exactly terrible. And the graphics work is simply incredible for all volunteer effort. And as a tie in to Poser ... on their making of DVD I even noticed Poser 4 characters in some of their storyboarding work. lol.

See my post above, that image is from the David unimesh figure. Haven't figured out an easy way to transfer the morphs between figures. And keep in mind that it doesn't work with the DAZ figures directly. You need both the FaceGen modeler AND the customizer products to do so.

FaceGen has an SDK which can be used to put the morph capabilities into your software application. This is what Curious Labs would have done. There is also a customizer which can be used to fit your own mesh to accept FaceGen morphs, along with either the FaceGen modeler or the SDK. Though it is pricy for an individual, it isn't that expensive for a company (IMO). But there is a lincense fee of $995 if you wish to use the customized mesh in your application (or sell morphs, from my understanding if I read the license correctly).

I have both FaceGen Modeler and the Customizer. It does a very good job. The attached image is a conversion of a friend's photo (original top left) to the DAZ David model using FaceGen and the Customizer. It isn't perfect as I did not take the time to fit the David mesh as close to the FaceGen mask as I should have, but the resemblance is definitely there.

That looks a lot like my Halloween costume back when I was 11 or so. Course, I wrapped tin foil around my boxes.

Attached Link: http://www.kaydara.com/downloads/tutorialdemos/MotionBuilder_Poser.pdf

You mentioned that you have Motionbuilder 5. At the attached link is a tutorial (nudity in the tutorial images) that provides instructions for exporting the rigging for any model in Poser into Motionbuilder. You can then export a Motionbuilder animation to a bvh file that is specific to your particular Poser figure. Works great!