Thank you, thank you, thank you! I thought I was the only one who suffered through 1 minute lag times switching between the library! This trick does seem to be dependent on the size of the runtime, and mine is over 30+ gigs! This trick replaces the hamster on the treadmill with a streamlined V8 engine! The reason for the lame plugin is the fact that gif and pict are protected proprietary file formats and they would have to pay licensing fees to incorporate the code into Poser. And with the sluggish nature of Poser with this code, I'm glad it's not. As much as gif has revolutionized the Web, it has no place in Poser as far as I'm concerned. If you need gif for the web, then you really should be using Adobe, Ulead, or other 3rd party programs to optimize and convert PNG files or the like anyway. Now I can spend that extra time tanning by the pool or grilling chicken instead! Thanks for this tip very much!!

And I've said this from the very beginning; the community vote was a terrible idea and wasted everyone's time. With prizes that big, it should have been judged professionally in a formal manner. I feel bad for those who have been trampled in this event, and for the fact Lillian had to waste her time with all the underworkings trying to steer this crazed bull to a straight path. But the sad fact remains, this contest isn't about the best work presented, it's about politics. And isn't that just what art is all about? I think not. I am disqualifying my images from this fiasco and I have never felt like I have wasted my time and energy as I have with this event. I also feel bad for whoever wins this thing as they will probably be criticized and questioned by those they surpassed. One entry wins with one vote over one which has 24. Ohhh yes, there will be trouble on the horizon, and I'm doing the smart thing and jumping off this sinking ship. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and this would certainly be proof of that! No more contests for me, I only compete with myself from now on!

Message edited on: 10/27/2005 12:11

Very valid points here and I agree with EmeraldSpider's comment about doing your best and being proud of it. It would be hard for me to believe someone would upload something they felt was mediocre. And of course, you will have your circles of friends here on the site, that is a given. What really ticks me off is people rallying their real life friends and family to start accounts just to vote. I know for a fact this is happening, and it's truly sad. As it stands, it's not about the quality of artwork generally, it's about the quanity of friends and family one has. What does that have to do with judging art exactly?? I guess I better start working on having a huge family to win anything here! LOL! To judge this contest fairly, they should have gotten a professional artist or three outside the site who knows of nobody here and the politics involved. When you involve the community in something like this with huge prizes at stake, of course people will abuse the system, that's a given, too. I'm not complaining about my placement, and I worked three weeks straight full time on two images, and the second one I felt was my best work ever. Over 90 hours of rendering time alone for one image! I feel bad for other artists whom I could swear would be in the top 25 before the contest started, and they aren't doing so well at all. As I see it, this event is more like a random fluke than a valid contest; popularity contest perhaps, but it's got very little to do with spotlighting the best images of the event. I also agree with Ele that your image is yours, and the best place for it is in full size in your gallery. I'm sorry I entered this "contest" and I now realize I should have posted my two Halloween images to my gallery for all to enjoy in the way it was meant to be. Now they are locked in and can't be posted until after the 31st. I certainly hope they won't allow this community vote again, and perhaps learn what a huge mistake that was. Anything here that starts with "Hot" or "Top" is obviously cursed and a sore spot for most. Next time think this out a little bit!

You call this entertainment?? Artists are leaving by this humiliating list and it's not fun, but annoying. This will be the second time I have posted this comment regarding this issue, and I'm sure on it's on the way to lockdown soon. Two things need to happen here regarding the Hot20; Reform or Remove. I will elaborate.

Reform

Limit artists' images to one per the 7 day period, this will open up alot more slots for others that don't normally make it there since 3 artists are taking up 12 slots. Wanna flood the Hot20 with daily images, too bad. One image, one artist, one week...simple. Two lines of code, DONE. This should open up at least 8-10 slots per week for people who don't normally make it there. Make sense? Good. Also, include an option on the upload screen to not include the vote button for those who don't wish to be part of the game. Are you with me? Ok, good.

Even better option!

Remove

Get rid of the Hot20 completely as it alienates so many people, causes hate threads, anger, and self doubt to so many. It's an insult to many people, and frankly, it's a joke. I love all of the people on the Hot20, and honestly most are good friends, but I also have many more friends who feel like they will never be recognized and they are getting sadly discouraged. This is a healthy creative inspiration that should be entertaining? LOL! When we post images, why not just rate each one from 1-10 and completely humiliate us!

To Admin - The pleas have been uttered, the requests have been asked, please don something about it before more people leave. It's your store, not ours.

To Dudley - You are my rock star, my Moses in a downpour of locusts, my inspiration and my friend. Please come back so I can make art again! I'm too sad and upset to create anything! =(

The ignorance knows no bounds,

-David-

Message edited on: 08/31/2005 01:53

Andi, That is the coolest thing I have ever seen! I didn't know about the Sedlec Ossuary prior to this thread. Thanks so much for the 'boner', it's another splendid addition to the arsenal! Who would ever think one could ever learn anything here in Poser forum! lol! Thanks again, Andi!!

Andi, That is the coolest thing I have ever seen! I didn't know about the Sedlec Ossuary prior to this thread. Thanks so much for the 'boner', it's another splendid addition to the arsenal! Who would ever think one could ever learn anything here in Poser forum! lol! Thanks again, Andi!!

Andi, That is the coolest thing I have ever seen! I didn't know about the Sedlec Ossuary prior to this thread. Thanks so much for the 'boner', it's another splendid addition to the arsenal! Who would ever think one could ever learn anything here in Poser forum! lol! Thanks again, Andi!!

That was possibly the most dumb question you probably answered, but I think it was just the sheer excitement which allowed me to miss that checkbox! lol! Thank you so much for the help, Paul!

Thank you so much Stefan!! Just this week I was looking all over the net for a real gargoyle; something fierce, scary, evil...most of what I found resembled 'angry ducks', not my idea of a gargoyle or grotesque! This is superb done, and thank you so much for your generosity! The market for gargoyles is fairly open; there are a couple out there; the Daz gargoyle doesn't do it for me. Fatale's is great, but it leans towards Sci-Fi, not medieval! Sixus1 has the Night Gaunt, which can be textured to resemble one, but that's it! One of these I hope someone will release a true gargoyle pack, even if it is $20.00 or so it would be so worth it!! Thanks again, Stefan, awesome work on this package!!

Here is a decent tutorial at Daz regarding basic raytraced reflections on the Ground plane prop (I used that technique in my Sensuous Black image, and it applies to Poser 5, as well).

http://www.daz3d.com/support/tutorial/index.php?id=939

• • That tutorial is missing two major things ! * * Be sure to check your Light Properties and make sure Raytraced Shadows in on you main light on what you want reflected, depending on the angle. I check this option for all my lights if I have intricate reflections. But I pay careful attention to the shadow options of each light (usually about .2 shadow on average)because I don't like the sharp shadows it can create.

Also, for the final render, turn on raytracing in the render options. You won't get reflections unless it's raytraced! I hope this helps!

Tiny Glasshoppa, Big Shadow!

-Shardz-

Message edited on: 05/12/2005 23:55

Yes Please! And how about a SEARCH FUNCTION for the libraries! My runtime is massive and it's impossible to find anything!

Thank you so much, Kozaburo! That was the first contest or event that I really participated in, and it was quite fun! I very much appreciate everything, thanks again!

I use both Vue 5 and Poser 5 & 6, and I got a chuckle by maxxxmodelz' very informative reply; the phrase "memory-efficient way of handling ". Well, that would rule Poser out! He is correct regarding instancing, it's a fabulous way to reproduce objects and textures while conserving memory. The problem is, Poser is simply a resource hog and there's no way to import a V5I scene, ragardless. Even if they did implement this feature, it would require a super computer to render out the scene, especially in Poser 6. I've been using the "store textures" feature in Poser 6, and almost everytime it gives me an out of memory message; not the virtual memory dialog, but actually out of memory. This is with 512 RAM and simply rendering a character with an outfit! The bottom line is, Vue 5 will import Poser scenes directly into the program with very little problems with mapping, textures, etc. And the rendering engine in Vue is incredible, although some might argue with Poser 6, but even with IBL (which Vue has) and AO (which Vue can simulate), your best bet is to use V5I to do your massive scenes. Now I have seen artists do this in Bryce, a good example of this is Flak. But it's quite painstaking to manually place all the characters in different poses and to setup a scene like that! I wish I could afford to upgrade to Vue 5I at this time, if I had the money, I surely would!

A lot of good points brought up here, and I have a couple opinions of my own, as well. During creation of a scene, I always have notepad handy and write down the products that I know I will be using. Why? Lots of reasons. Some merchants actually come and see what you are doing with their products, and I always get a thrill when a merchant comments and really likes what I did...it's a compliment to me. Also, as mentioned above, others like to know which products were used for possible purchase transactions. If you used a product, more than likely you were happy with the purchase...why not create more sales forthe merchant? Advertsing, perhaps, but I look at it as courtesy. I won't take credit for someone else's work. If you look at my credits, they even sometimes list that I modified them or perhaps which fingers certain rings from certain packages went. But that's me...I like details. On the flip side...Free Stuff. I only have one free item on the site, and it was used many times; I got credit for one image, and I was so thrilled to see what this artist did with it. I have seen at least 6 other images that used my item and no credit was given. Comments in this artist's gallery gave the impression that he created it himself - as half the galleries commented on this item. That made me very sad and a bit upset. I almost thought of messaging the artist about this, but it's not my style to do so and I still was a bit honored that this artist chose my work to use in his image. As mentioned above, yes it is rude not to credit freebies as someone spent time to add to the free consortium here on the site. Just my two cents... -David-

Aha! Thanks for the information. I never use that drop box to navigate the site, so I missed it completely or wasn't looking well enough. I asked because I believe I was in the Hot 20 with one of my images as it got like 350+ viewings more in a very short time...and the image was at least 6-7 days old. But I'll never know for sure. =D Thanks for the info.