Quote - The easiest way to make a figure including actors is using the hierarchy editor. Here's how it goes:

• import all the separate actors-to-be into Poser...
• use the hierarchy editor to drag "children" onto their "parents". The root of the hierarchy should be the hull prop...
  -select the "Create new figure" button. The new figure will be automatically saved in the "New Figures" library of your main Poser runtime...
  -Create a new scene and load the figure you just created. Turn on the Joint editor and reposition the bones...

Did exactly that and lo and behold, a figure was born with a whole lot of actors instead of props. Yeah, this is cool. I've kinda been over this road before, only now the bits are all proper actors, which is probably necessary for that weld-pointAt thing to work properly.

Totally thrilled, I tried to swing the tiller back and forth and to my horror watched the whole boat deform. Hmmm bizarre. Kinda did a bit more reading in tutorials and figured "Bend 1" had to be set to "Bend 0" all throughout the .cr2. Boat being a mechanical object, not organic.  I can also see your point as to where I'm really going to have to invest in

Quote - The book "Secrets of Figure Creation" by B.L. Render ...

Pretty much a necessity... and available at Amazon for as little as $22 plus 12.49 shipping (to Oz) - better save up my shekels, hey?

One of the things I've done is save my first imported props as a .pz3. That's my first intermediary stage... and here is the hierarchy editor at this stage:

The second is the first .cr2 created by the hierarchy editor. Then, I've just been doing my .cr2 edits in Notepad++. I can set channels off and on pretty easily, enable limits, confirm all my texture paths are correct, and even change the internal names of my actors! Oooo I like to live dangerously.

Now, what I was going to try with clever welds and pointAts was:
-The boom is parented to the hull
-The upper pulley is parented to the boom
-The mainsheet (rope/line/whatever) is parented to the upper pulley
-The lower pulley is parented to the mainsheet
-The Slider is parented to the lower pulley
-The track is parented to the Slider
...thus:

Easing myself into this, I'm going to print out the juicy bits of your .cr2 and see how you did the welds and PointAts and IKChains... I'll let you know how I go... oh, and of course if you kinda see me heading down the wrong path, please let me know.

Hey, this is FUN!

Quote - I need a help to make a realistic hair for my newly created (newly mean really new coz i'm new in this 3d world and i choose blender over maya and 3ds max, because for a silly reason which is the logo/icon or whatever it maybe).
Anyway i've tried so many ways could be found in google, from fiber python script, particle and curve guide, and the last one would be patch over a year ago made by Jahka. but i still haven't satisfied yet. Maybe anyone can help me? please i 'm obsessed with this BLENDER. 

Are you creating hair for Blender? to render in Blender? or is this to export to other 3D apps?

Blender has a new particle component in which you could create hair that can be exported to other 3D programs

Okay, an update. I've gotten a bit stuck. Probably need to avail myself of a tutorial or something.

(I did do a bit of a tangent exploring Kerkythea and rendering transmapped hair - can be done, but there's a few hoops to jump through - but what an AWESOME renderer!!!!).

When I looked at your .cr2, Les, it all seemed really clear. However, that ...er... fag top and bottom comprise the body, which is the parent for your exercise.

Now, I've imported my little sailboat in bits from Blender, with the Hull being the primary object: ergo, the Parent. All other bits twist and turn and swing and sway along with this parent with the "inherit bends of parent" tick box ticked when you do the "change parent" thing.

Before I started importing any of the bits related to the Hull, I brought the hull into the setup room, then exited, thus creating a figure... right? Is that how it works? or did I miss something? In any event, after that I brought up the .cr2 in my favourite BIG text editor (NotePad++) and changed Figure1_SETUP to Hull... and the .cr2 looks pretty much like I want.

Geez, I wish there were a Kerkythea-like manual for doing this kinda thing! Been looking, but all I find is stuff for Poser 4!

Anyway, imported the other components, like the jib and the rudder/tiller and the rigging and the mainsail/boom/toppinglift assembly... always setting the Hull as parent (with the inheriting box ticked) before I set the joint parameters (where the tiller is meant to swing, or the boom, or whatever...)

What I end up with is a sailboat that pretty-much does what it is meant to. It heels, the boom swings out and the mainsail with it, the tiller/rudder rotate on the y-axis +40 / -40 (so the tiller handle doesn't embed itself into the side of the cockpit... anyway, you get the idea.

What I do have is One Actor called Body, with everything else a prop. Even the hull is a prop.

Perhaps I should stop there. Comparing my .cr2 to svdl's, you've got heaps of actors - no idea how you managed to make all these objects actors! - where I only have props.

I feel like I'm so close, but am missing some crucial info...

...and thank you, both of you, for having an interest in this!

Quote - Well I did try depth of 100 as I said above.

The Brightness Threshold is something new to me. I think it means don't send another ray out if it is going to be multiplied by a factor that is lower than this number. However, I doubt it applies here, because the brightness in this case of the errant ray is 100% or 1, well above the threshold.

Still I'll try it, but not today - gotta go off to more consulting.

Look, mate, shootin' in the dark, here. You know heaps more'n I do about all this. I just told you what HE said. Colour me Total Newbie. I sense I can learn a lot from you. Hope your consulting went well....

Quote - Yes - hair artifacts.

After studying the material system a bit more on my own, I independently came to understand how to configure it properly.

Basically what we're doing now is to define a hair material and an air material. We use the transmap to decide which points are air and which points are hair. We are no longer thinking in terms of transparent hair or opaque hair. That is the old way of doing things. The new way is to actually make the geometry behave like air wherever we want it to.

I see the artifacts with that shader setup. I also see them with any other setup. In fact, I see them with the hair configured to produce just a solid ambient color without using any shader interaction with light and shadow.

Here is the hair - just the hair - loaded and scaled properly into Kerky. We're looking at the back of the hair.

I'm not sure this is the answer to this issue, but when I mentioned the fact that I had artifacts, one the gurus at the Kerkythea forum suggested the following:
**The artifact on the back is probably because of too low tracing depth. You would need to "apply" the render presetting , then "cancel" and then increase tracing depth in the render window. The other artifact could be because of Brightness Threshold: lower this value to 0.001 or 0.000. After these changes , render again but this time with "custom" settings.
**

Quote - I get the artifacts, too. I was concerned that I was not exporting correctly or something.

Here's some more data.

I was using Kerky 2.05 - saw artifacts.

Upgraded to kerky 2.08 - artifacts disappeared in raytracing, but all other render methods showed them.

Upgrade to Kerky 2.09 - artifacts are back all the time...

When you say artifacts, I'm assuming you mean in the hair. Do you get the artifacts if you set your hair material to the first setting mentioned above, the one with the Layered Material?
I actually - after a fair bit of frustration - created a new figure (squeaky-clean, not a save-as of 7 iterations) added the hair and exported to obj. Only then did I get the results outlined above, so your point of a dodgy export from Poser is not one to ignore.

Also, size matters - I import my Vicky obj file x 1.8 - not sure where I got that number from, but she look pretty-right, based on the squares she's standing on.

Decided to do a comparative render using the three material methods for transmapped hair, same lights, same pose, no changes except how the hair material is setup. So you can see what your mileage might be rendering this sort of organic matter, I have a P4, 2.8 gHz Intel box with a gig of RAM, and a NVidia 6600 GT graphics card. Nothing flash.

For lights, I've got two omni lights with only one with soft shadows enabled, neither with caustics enabled. Background is the KT sunset sky, which to my understanding also adds a type of light to the scene.

On a side note, I do see some sort of strange artifact on the back of the head at the hairline and another showing just slightly on Vicky's cheek - not sure what they are... but they are showing up in all of the renders. The models have been imported scaled up x 1.8...

=========================================================
The hair material settings for the first render are as follows (developed by Notareal and endorsed by most of the other wizards on the KT forum):
[Layered material]
  Weighting
.....Weight#0 Transmap bitmap
.....Weight#1 Transmap bitmap (Bitmap options: Tick Inverted)
...[Matte/Phong#0]
   Reflectance
.....Diffuse: Texture bitmap
...[Matte/Phong#1]
   Transmittance
.....refraction: Colour white
This is the result:
www.tightbytes.com/images/Poser/Kerkythea/Short_Bob16.jpg
Render time: 40min, 30sec

=========================================================
For the next render, I used obm890's settings:
[Matte/Phong]
   Reflectance
.....Diffuse: Texture bitmap
   Transmittance
.....refraction: Transmap bitmap (Bitmap options: Tick Inverted)

www.tightbytes.com/images/Poser/Kerkythea/Short_Bob17.jpg
Render time: 27min, 58sec

=========================================================
For the next render, I used Kim Frederik's settings (a KT guru):
[Matte/Phong]
   Reflectance
.....Diffuse: Texture bitmap
  
.....refraction: Transmap bitmap (Bitmap options: Tick Inverted)

www.tightbytes.com/images/Poser/Kerkythea/Short_Bob18.jpg
Render time: 4min, 40sec

On this last one, there's no question that detail suffers for the masking technique on close-ups. For open landscape scenes or architectural settings where the focus is the building, not the person, the last setting delivers a decent-looking render:

www.tightbytes.com/images/Poser/Kerkythea/Short_Bob19.jpg
Render time: 28sec

In any event, this is one HOT renderer of which I haven't even scratched the surface.

Things are moving so fast - me learning to shut up and read the manual - that it'll take a few to totally explain things, but here's the short version. For this particular model, Kozaburo's Short Bob, this appears to work the best. For the hair material, in the material editor, under the thumbnail of the image, replace Matte/Phong with Layered Material, and immediately add two Matte/Phongs to that.
For Layered Material, click fill weights, and for weight#0, use the transmap bitmap. For weight#1, also use the transmap bitmap, but when you click on it in the Texture Editor, under Bitmap options, tick Inverted. Get rid of the default white coloured boxes too for both Fill weights, leaving just the transmaps..
For Matte/Phong #0, put the texture bitmap in Diffuse and for Matte/Phong#1, use the colour white for refraction.
And your result should be:

I know, not a brilliant image, but you get the idea. You have to adjust for the eyelashes, too... anything that uses a transmap will need tweaking.

Also, I was told that my model was too small - so I made a change in Settings-> Advanced-> Modellers... OBJ Modeller, I upped the Import scale to 1.8. We'll see how accurate that is when I import a chair or something made in Sketchup.

Anyway, time for bed... have fun with this! It shows great promise!!!

I would be interested, Bantha, particularly if it includes some method to integrate transmapped hair methods into Kerkythea. At this point, I'm having a bit of a trial getting it to work properly. Got the experts on the Kerkythea forum trying to nut it out, though. The issue appears to be: clipmapping renders a very clumpy hairline, whilst putting the transmap into the refraction field in the material editor for the hair material renders a very fine hairline, but there seems to be mesh ghosting:

There's got to be a solution just around the corner to this - perhaps you might have an idea?

Quote - Ok, I'm trying it with short bob. Strange, I have those same ghosted mesh shapes and I can't get rid of them. I'm pretty certain they're not caused by specular or reflection.

Thank goodness - it's not just me, then. Would it make any sense to try those transmaps in other areas, like Translucency? As far as I know, the mesh itself has nil colour properties - it uses purely a UV map.

Quote -
I would use no specular while you're getting the trans stuff to work. Then if you apply specular you'll probably see a filmy effect appearing in places where the mesh should be invisible (like at the tips of the hair). You'll need to apply the trans map again as a mask so that the specular is limited only to where the actual hairs are visible.

By this I take it to mean that I should go ahead and set the transmap just like I did for Refraction? Just because I am seeing that ghosty outline?
I'll do that, and let you know...

Quote -
Looks like specular or reflection (see my earlier posts in this thread, I mention exactly this problem in 2 posts) - make sure you have nothing in those channels for all the hair materials (you might have removed specular for the outer layers but not an inner layer, if they are different materials).

Which hair prop is this? I don't think I have it, but I'll try it if I have it.

This hair is a classic by Kozaburo called "Short Bob". You can get it for free from his website:
digitalbabes2.com/dload1.html

It was originally designed for V3, but using Hair Conversion System I got it to fit V4.

I've had a look at the mesh in Blender - the hair model is comprised of several layers of mesh. However, in Kerkythea, there is only one hair material. For an image of what my material editor settings are, please click www.tightbytes.com/images/Poser/Kerkythea/Settings.jpg .

As far as I can tell, I've got nothing entered in the specular or reflection areas except what was there by default. Perhaps those need changing or something? I'm so sorry to be such a thick newbie, but I'm really in the dark about things like Fresnel and Cosine and how or if they affect the render and my study of the material editor guide leaves too many holes in my understanding of this.

Also, I'm rendering using Photon Mapping and Final Gathering (SW), with ray tracing set to Extra pass 3x3... not sure if that plays a role.

Thanks so much for your patience!

My own experience with wonky Poser behaviour ended up being something quite mundane: temp file accumulation. Deleted them, and Poser 7 acted like it should again. Dunno, too obvious? Probably tried that...

Okay, we are getting closer... and as added benefit I'm gaining a bit of an understanding about material properties. Decided to download and have a read of the Kerkythea Material Editor Guide, and found the section on Refraction and IOR. The interface seems to have changed a bit, but the principles remain the same.

So, anyway, having a play with the settings: first I did exactly as recommended and got:

as you can see, it made a huge difference in the detail - the hair feathers out beautifully now. Now I've got to figure out how to keep from seeing the geometry. I tried another render with Refraction index set at 1.2 (instead of 1.0 - apparently 1.56 is glass) but nil difference in the render. The ghosty bit looks like the underlying mesh is being highlighted somehow. Anyone have an idea how to get rid of this?

So close, and yet...

Quote - Not sure where you got the Refractive index of 0.200 from

...default value - not sure what to set it at. Sure glad you've had some info on this - I was in the dark.

Quote -
but it's bound to give you really funky results.

Oh, ya betcha, mate - they were wonky!

Quote - Set it to 1.0 (= R.I. for air/vacuum) for stuff that's supposed to be completely invisible.

See attached image:
Apply the hair texture to Diffuse
Apply the Trans map to Refraction
Click the word 'Refraction' - A
The image appears in the Texture editor box at B
Click it and the texture properties open at C
Check 'Inverted' (because in poser transmaps white means solid, whereas in Kerky white means transparent)

Same thing for lashes, only you can probably use a colour for Diffuse instead of the map.

I would use no specular while you're getting the trans stuff to work. Then if you apply specular you'll probably see a filmy effect appearing in places where the mesh should be invisible (like at the tips of the hair). You'll need to apply the trans map again as a mask so that the specular is limited only to where the actual hairs are visible.

This is exactly what I was looking for - I wasn't getting all the parameters from Fletch on the Kerkythea forum, and I had nil clue what to be setting things at.  There is no information - or at least, I have not uncovered any! - about the white/black visible/transparent disparity between Poser and Kerkythea - how the heck did you find this out?? Hats off to you, mate - this is a key discovery! ... a major shoulder-up.

And believe me, the Poser community will thank you for this, too. I'm going to have a go tomorrow morning - this is a Sat nite with my workmates (nurses, yes, we like the grog!) and whilst I'm obsessed with this, I think I need a clear mind to be nutting it all out.... see ya in the morning, and Happy Blummin' Mother's Day, hey?

Cheers,
Robyn