Quote - A SamT said, i would also go for texture + Displacement map.
look here if you want details in the suit and a similar second skin setup.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2832094&page=1

 

Ahhhh I am just like the disgruntled person in that thread. Nodes and displacement and all that is above me. And I still don't like toes, belly buttons and nipples showing even though they are painted over. It's too much like those Sports Illustrated models and their body paint. Technically, they are still nude.

Quote - Since it's a skintight costume, what's wrong with using a painted texture and displacement?  It will be lighter on resources (no extra mesh) and you'll never have poke through.

Little things that bother me: nipples, toes where boots should be, fingernails where there should be gloves. The ears sticking out... Beyond that, the texture map that I did above looks pretty cool with some camera angle trickery. I would rather have the prop costume, really.

Quote - Hey, the most recent scripts in Cage's threads are here:

http://www.the.cage.page.phantom3d.net/TDMT_Match/other_scripts/various.html

This will allow you download the most recent goods.  The thread is helpful to explain what all of his fine scripts do.  There are some very, VERY, useful goodies there and they are all FREE.

Just seems like learning Blender, a fine and lofty goal, might not be required to complete your costume.  I, as you say, lack skills beyond posing.

Good Luck,
R

Thank you, I'll give that a shot. I am willling to try anything once!

Thanks for the information. I'll check it out. But the problem is most of this stuff beyond posing and animating is above my head. I still have to learn so much of it.

Oh yeah, and I have an agreement with my wife that I won't purchase anything else other than the program. She's got it in her head that if I can't make money with it, I shouldn't be buying it.

Two things I forgot to mention: I was thinking of giving him a belt, and possibly a cape. I see 15 people have viewed this, but no takers yet. sigh

Quote - for the "glitch" go into the graph editor to smooth it

also look at knocking down the frame rate (if you haven't) poser default is 30 fps if you can get away with 20fps it will save you 30 mins + on every second of animation

Blenders great init just getting into that myself!! now I have never tried it but I think blender could make hdr images for backgrounds, Carrara can and its been on the 3d mags as a freebie (older ones) so partner can relax lol. I'm on a budget for this stuff too but since I started doing my own modeling I spend very little on content and its so much fun making it yourself

 

nice work on the ani's by the way

Thanks. I just started with Blender, and it's a little overwhelming right now. I've never done anything like this before, so I had to download the manual (a wiki) and start reading. The manual is over 1500 pages long! This animation is actually set at 15 fps, to give it a slow motion feel,  I use Virtual Dub, and its default setting is 10 fps, but that was too slow.

Thank you for looking!

Quote - Just to address the animation glitch, it looks to me like an issue with walk designer not creating "perfect" loops, in the animation palette, try deleting the glitch keyframe and the frames either side of it Poser will re-tween the gap.

Thank you for that. When I start doing the animation for this project that keeps getting bigger every damn day, I will keep that in mind. Not just for walk designer, but in any animation that I do.

Quote - Hmm - maybe you could call him Generator or Gen1.  But then most of his powers aren't about the lightening so much.  But perhaps they all stem from electricity in some way.

That's why the word superman suited him because he has a bunch of powers.

 

Static Stan.

 

Electric Blue?

Actually, I came up with the name Green Lightning about 5 years before he even got that power.

He's had a lot of different powers over the years depending on my real life dilemas. He could read your emotions, teleport at will, shrink down to 1 inch, divide himself into as many as 3 people; there are a whole host of things he could do.

I was reading a lot of Justice League when he was created. Green Lantern, Green Arrow... so Green Lightning seemed right. At his creation, he was just like Batman, in a way. Rich S.O.B with expensive toys, hence the sky fortress and all the vehicles.

The super powers gradually made their way in.

So his current set of powers may also include some of his past ones. I will have to choose.

One more tidbit, the green part is also a moot point because I plan on making his costume mostly midnight blue with just a bit of green in it.

Quote - well obviously his costume would have to have a lightening streak down the front but that sounds kind of familiar.

Tell me his powers again and I might be able to think of a name for him.

Love esther

I have design in mind for the costume, but let's see about the name. His powers are the standard flying, superhuman strength, and of course the lightning. That has evolved over the years. It used to be just green laser-like beams, then it was something green lantern-ish, to now it's literally green lightning that shoots from his fingers. But it's not just that, he can call it out of the air if you have his hands trapped or otherwise engaged. But he can only do this once and for a short burst as a last resort because it saps him of his strength momentarily. He also has his sky fortress, which is hidden in a bank of clouds it generates. It is constantly in a fixed orbit around the earth, out of reach of any satellite we might have up there (we meaning any country on earth), and there used to be a whole host of really cool vehicles that he would use, but I 've done away with them since he doesn't really need transportation. That's pretty much him in a nutshell. There were other powers that came and went as the years have come and gone, but I don't think I am going to give them back to him. Can't make him too powerful or too intelligent or too good, because then he would be boring. Although at one time, I gave him the power to read your emotions briefly if he touched you. I don't know why I did that, or why it went away. I'll have to explore that some more and see where it goes.

Quote - the hope is we will get faster.  well perhaps I can talk you into making comics (which is also very slow and painful but probably not as slow and painful as animations).

Love esther

I dunno, I have a bunch of friends who are all struggling actors who also happen to be into home recording who are chomping at the bit to get me to let them do the voice overs for all of this. I am still trying to figure out which story I am going to tell. I was lingering on a Star Wars thing for awhile, but that seems like way too much research, and anything I could come up with would violate about 2000 copyrights, so I am back to my 2 superheroes. I am leaning toward Green Lightning, with perhaps a name change and a good back story to tell his origin (which I am still without after nearly 30 years).

I have to design his costume first on paper, then try to create it in Blender. I will probably use the Poser characters for now. I have enough face morphs to be able to tell a decent story without using any outside stuff (like M4/V4, who, for some reason, I don't really like).

So that's where I am. Still a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way to go until I can get started on this thing. But the basics are there. Now I have to make it happen.

I am still struggling with the look I want when I start my movie. I thought I was going for "photo realistici", but apparently, that term starts an avalanche of bad vibes. I am pretty close to the look I see in my head with the "Use The Force" animation. The lighting, composition, the feel are all there. It's a rendering nightmare though. That short little piece took the better part of 5 hours to render. And then there was the post work... But it's something I want to do, and until I can figure out how to do it more efficiently, I will plug at it like this.

The Geek Squad helped me retrieve a lot of data when my old laptop decided that it didn't want to get along with the motherboard anymore. Cost me $75, but they got everything I needed of the laptop. Nothing I tried was working, because the motherboard got corrupted, and that's something a bit beyond my expertise.

Quote - His work is on utube as they are animations...

All of it can be accessed from the link I provided in the first post.

Esther, I started on your online comic. Pretty good stuff. I could only read a few pages because of this stupid so called broadband connection, but it's intriguing. And the art isn't to bad at all in the beginning.

Quote - well the BB envirsphere is in free stuff here.

But you would need to get hold of HDRIs or take some pics.  there are lots of free hdris on the net I would think.

Also I have vue and I can actually make HDRIs in vue, so if you want one to play with of an outdoor scene I can make one for you.

I have a deal with my spouse.  I do extra shifts and keep a small percentage of the extrashift money for poser stuff.

Love esther

I may take you up on that offer. I'll check out the BB envirsphere thing when I can download at a speed that won't time out on me...