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486 comments found!
Good insights Zarabanda. I actually do make my sets first and save them as pz3s before I ever put a character down - sometimes it gets me into trouble with scaling and stuff (I try and use Dr. Geeps scaling technique, but it seems not all the prop/figure makers do so there's always minor adjustments) but it at lest gives me a good base to work from - it also makes them reusable :). I've definitely run into the constriction thing, it is tricky, and I'll follow your advice about hiding walls when necessary (that still doesn't answer my question about the ceiling in relation to the lighting however). As far as rendering over a background, I'm afraid I'll lose correct shadows - and I've already got enough shadow problems. Also it seems it would make it more difficult for the figures to interact with things in the environment - I suppose its a matter of carefully selecting what gets put in the background and what stays in the actual poser environment. I might give that a try. ernyoka1 - I've followed that link before when you've posted it in other threads, that is good stuff. I think I'm going to keep my renders "cleaner" in the finished product except as special effects/special occasions demand different treatment. But I do like the text bubbles used, as I figured a more rectangular shape is much more space efficient - I'll make myself a set of rectangular text areas and some "spikey" ones for yelling (without the drop shadows) and try it out. I'll definitely reduce the size of my text - the text areas are truly taking up too much space. Oh yeah, Sam I did mess around with making my own "global" light set last night, and it seems like it will be a very useful thing once I get the hang of it. I think I ended up with about 14 minor lights and one Main light, with the minors set at an intensity of 13 (just to start with). It definitely gives a more well rounded lighting effect, but I think I may need to tone down the minor lights as it seems I've lost a lot of the shadow detail on the figure itself - the current setting makes things look a little too washed out or flat. Did anyone else have any comments or suggestions about the textures? Like I said, I haven't really seen better myself, so if I'm missing out on something great it would be good to know. If you all don't mind I'll post up my next page sometime later in the week for more critiquing to see if I've made any progress. Again, thanks very, very much for all the insights, they've been extremely useful (and kind). Unzipped
Thread: Critique request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
All I have right now are the DAZ hi res texture/eye sets. Can anyone recommend some better ones? I've looked at some of the ones people often mention, and honestly I can't see that they're much better than the DAZ ones I already have - so any suggestions would help. The reception desk is a bit bare - I was going for sparse, but you're right it is a bit too sparse. There actually is a phone there it's just obscured by one of the characters - but I definitely should have had a few pens lying around at least. Again, great input - thanks Unzipped
Thread: Critique request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
I guess I should have given a bit more context from the start, but this comic is just something I'm doing because I think I have a story to tell, I enjoy rendering with Poser (and doing some postwork in Photoshop), and a few people have expressed interest in hearing/seeing it. I'm not getting paid (or asking to be paid or planning on ever being paid), there's no assignment or deadline. So the whole thing is really a no pressure environment for me. It's as much about the journey as anything else - I'm doing this to improve my digital artistry and storytelling abilities as well as seeing if I have anything to say. Hopefully a couple of people will find it entertaining or interesting into the bargain.
Now on to the good stuff:
Sam, I'll give creating my own global lighting a go in my next page - and I do have shadows off for the floor in these.
Zarabanda, If/when I use that wall prop again in future, I'll definitely redo the texture and darken the base color. I hear you about the ceiling, but I figured adding a ceiling would have made my lighting life even harder than it already was - what's your approach to lighting when using a completely enclosed space? Also I've done a ton (well at least four months or so) of pre-production work in several other areas (textures, sets, props, faces, morph settings, and so on), and have probably short changed lighting a bit. Maybe I got a bit impatient to get started (the story is constantly writing itself in my head, but I can't get the visuals together quick enough it seems), but I figured I'd start generating the pages and smooth out the rough edges as I go along, it just felt like it was time to start putting things together and seeing some results.
About the cameras - how much room for variation is there really? It seems all there is is positioning and focal adjustment - is there something else I'm missing? I understand having multiple cameras around to help with posing and assembling a scene, but as far as actually rendering is it really valuable to have lots of different cameras? Obviously I haven't really experimented with it too much as I couldn't find a real use for it, so any info here would be enlightening.
PapaBlueMarlin - You're right about the drop shadows, I'll either shrink them or drop them completely. Would you go with a different shape for the speech boxes? I guess I just sort of defaulted my approximation of standard speech/thought bubbles. What have you or others used that's worked? Would square make more sense - elipses seem to waste space needlessly. I have a problem with getting rid of the thought bubbles - though I don't plan on going to straight narrative much, I still like to reserve unattached square boxes for that - would people get to confused if I used squares for everything?
For the text, again I just defaulted to standard comic "LetterOMatic". I doubt I'd use impact as it's not neutral enough - it's a more emphatic font - but I'll look into something more narrow, and also try reducing the font size some. If you noticed I went from 16 in the first page, to 12 in the second. I think I'll give 10 a try and see if it's legible.
Again you guys are great, I really appreciate the insights - keep them comming if you've got more.
Thanks again,
Unzipped
PS. If anyone here is actually interested in continuing on with seeing the story unfold (fingers crossed) you can email me at shulkophile@yahoo.com and I'll tell you more about it. I'm not trying to advertise here or anything like that, I'm really just after artistic criticism so I don't want to comment more about the story aspects here.
Thread: Critique request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
There are no nitpicks. You're darn right. I don't know how that U got in there, although I have noticed my typing has not been so good of late, many a fat fingering these last few days. Thanks for that, I'll definitely edit it. Too bad there's not spellchecker integrated into Photoshop eh? Any comments on the visuals?
Thread: Warning! - New Virus trick | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
"Windows Update doesn't work on any other browser for me" O.K. so I exaggerated - you'll still need IE for stuff like this. Only use IE for things like that - hopefully the connection and data from MS won't be nasty, if you're getting hosed by stuff you receive from MS, we've all got bigger problems. :)
Thread: Critique request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
This is all great stuff here, thanks for the insights. Let me clarify a couple of things that have been brought up.
Responses to the critiques so far:
Fish eyed close ups - bingo, you nailed it. Here's where a shortcut came back to bite me. For most shots I used the dolly cam at 100 focal. But on the second page the 2 close ups were with the face cam because I got lazy and didn't want to hassle with repositioning dolly (or aux, or main). I actually set the focal to 35 from 25, but JV is right, it's still fish eyed. I'll definitely give 80 a try in future. Great advice.
The lighting - bingo again. This is tough because I've been struggling with lighting in general for a few months now. I've read Dr. Geep's tutorials a few times (looks like I'll review them again), messed around with RNDA light sets, DAZ complex global lighting (overkill), made my own, all sorts of things. Some times I manage to pull off great lighting (well for me anyway), and sometimes I need to take a walk after particularly grievous renders. In these I definitely was going for UNdramatic lighting - if everything is lit dramatically, the truly dramatic scenes aren't highlighted quite as much - there's really nothing dramatic about the lighting in an office, and that's the sort of "reality" I'm hoping to achieve. Basically these are straight interior shots, so these represent the best of my hamhanded approaches to interior lighting to date. I figure, logically, that I place the light sources where the lights would actually be, fiddle with the color, intensity, shadows and that should get me "realistic" lighting for the room. That's pretty much what I've done here.
It's funny because my first impulse was to say the lighting is too bright in general, while all the comments so far have been that it's actually too dark, at least in relation to the faces. Shows how much I've got to learn. Anyway, maybe my current normal every day interior lighting approach isn't quite there yet, so more advice in this department would only help. On test renders I realized Maggie's face was drastically underlit, so I did make another light and pointed it at her face to help out - should I take this approach to all the figures? I guess the problem is that the lighting in these is too bright in general, and not bright enough where it needs to be. Does that sound about right?
Anyway, as I said this is great feedback, I really appreciate it. If people have follow ups or there are more things to be said I'd love to hear them.
Thanks again,
Unzipped
Thread: Warning! - New Virus trick | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
If you haven't done so already, go here www.lavasoft.de, download the free version of adaware. Install it, run it - it should fix your malware problems. Then go here www.mozilla.org, download mozilla, install it, run it, use it for your browser and your email. Never run IE again. It will solve most of your MS/Internet related virus/worm/trojan problems. PS. They're both free.
Thread: Warning! - New Virus trick | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
If you live with windows (and most of us do), just don't open email attachments, period. It may make file transfers a bit more tricky, but it's the best way to keep away from badness. It's what I do, and it helps me sleep better at night.
Thread: Searching for Bum Bag / Fanny Pack Prop ? | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
"It's Bum Bag in the UK too, the American version sounds vaguely obscene" And Bum Bag doesn't? :D Sorry, I just found that funny.
Thread: Critique request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
Thread: Request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
My favorite part of that image is the Q shaped shadow on the wall. Very effective. Good lighting too. The one thing I'd say, and honestly I struggle with this myself quite a bit, is that your figure's skin looks a little flat/homogenous. Try upping the strength of your bump map maybe? Or give the skin a bit of a highlight using a dark grey tone? I have the same problem myself and I'm messing around with these things too, so maybe I'm just more tuned into that than I should be. Anyway, keep rendering, you're only half way to 200!
Thread: The beginner newbie scum that I am... | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
"8. Preview before you post. Once you post you cant edit." In addition, if you've written up an opus for a post, make sure you do it in some sort of text editor. There's been a couple of occasions where I wrote myself up a nice post only to hit the preview button and get directed right back to the forum index due to negative forum software karma - bye bye post. If you create your post in a separate application it will still be there when the forum software hoses you, otherwise you get to compose your thoughts all over again - or do like I do, skip doing it over and thus deprive the world of my ingenious insight (that was a joke for the humour impaired).
Thread: Poser 4 book used in Poser 5? | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
I'd say, pick what you think would be your simplest idea and just jump in and try and reproduce it. I learn the most by 1) trial and error which leads to mistakes which are the most instructive things you'll ever encounter and give you a real sense of ownership and achievement when you solve them on your own and then 2)when you're really stumped come here and do a search, go through some tutorials, and if still stuck ask a question here.
Seriously most of the time if you're depending on others to solve your problems, you're never really going to be able to function on your own, and in the artistic world that means you aren't going to come up with much that's original or "you." So get your hands dirty, drop a character or two on the canvas and mess around, build things, break things, fix them and then shout for help when things are so broken you don't know how to fix them. Do that and you'll be the one giving answers instead of looking for them in short order.
Books and such are good for giving you the basics, sometimes for looking up obscure details that might give you trouble, but for the most part they aren't going to get you to the point where you're going to do anything breathtaking - only effort, persistence and inspiration will do that.
good luck!
Thread: WIP Post.. Eye problem... | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
I'm not sure exactly what you think the eye pose problem is, so I'm guessing here that the problem is the eyes don't look like they're pointing in the same direction exactly though the difference is very slight. Hopefully that's what you're talking about.
Anyway, there was another thread related to this a while back where I read about this trick (unfortunately I don't seem to be able to find it quickly and can't remember the author, but you can search for the original thread if you like, I'll just summarize here):
Instead of using just one sphere prop, create an eye pose prop consisting of two sphere props connected by a cylander or rectangle (the "bridge" prop doesn't really matter). Place the spheres at either end of the bridge, but keep them as separate objects (ie. don't export as a unified mesh), and parent them to the bridge prop. Speparate the spheres to match the width of the distance between the target character's eyes. Parent the spheres to the bridge and create the prop in your props library. You should end up with a prop that looks like this (warning sad textual representation of a graphical object follows):
O-O
Now point an eye at the sphere on the prop directly opposite that eye, and move the bridge to wherever it is you want the point of focus for your character's eyes to be. The character's eyes will track it better than a single sphere as you move the prop around. This will give a more accurate representation of how we look at things (unless you're going for a cross eyed look).
All credit to whoever came up with the above, I'm just repeating something I learned here.
PS. I'm also guessing that the face is supposed to be Angelina Jolie? Might I suggest moving the lower lip in a bit, right now it looks a bit too swolen. Just a friendly suggestion.
Thread: merchant advice | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL
If you don't release it how will you ever know if it's really useful to anyone? Put it out there and let it compete. Maybe you don't sell a single one, but that in itself will give you valuable information that you can use going forward (maybe there isn't really a market for your item, or you'll have to take a look at the competing product and figure out why people like it better than yours in that case but that's worth quite a bit).
I mean really - how many different breast morphing/manipulation items are out there for sale? People buy the good ones even so right?
Hopefully you put it out there, some people buy it and leave feedback, which you can use to improve it and your subsequent works and you make a few sheckles into the bargain.
Don't look at it as a one off profit making venture - look at it as one part of your growing portfolio of work. You'll get your name out there, some exposure that might help your future works get more response. Who knows, after you release some other quality stuff people will look at your "also offered by" section, see this thing and pick it up because your other stuff is good.
In short, you've got nothing to lose by releasing it, and much to gain.
PS. Despite what other people have said if all other things are equal, the deciding factor will be price - so a lower price won't hurt.
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Thread: Critique request | Forum: Poser - OFFICIAL