Quote -
The PoserSurface Diffuse_Color channel does not do everything. It only does one thing: it implements a particular type of Diffuse node (I forget which diffuse lighting model it uses). 

It's the diffuse component Kd for Phong shading. Is that what you meant?

 Just to set a level here I'll add that I'm running P8 on a G5 dual 2 ghz  with 3 gig of RAM and my first impression was that it responded slower than P7. I have a 30" monitor so I made all the windows much smaller which seemed to help some. This is only the first day I've had it running so, no conclusions yet.

Quote - > Quote - **Tongues? Landing Strips?  Are we still talking about avatars? : 0

No longer, I guess.**

The tongue came earlier in the thread, I was just quoting.
Some were talking about avatars.
I was talking about about love.

Oh yeah, I know, I just thought the airport metaphor had something to do with the haircut by that name. My apologies, just ignore me.

 IsaoShi wrote:

You were on a good approach... "What should I have?..." but you completely overshot the runway with "... a giant tongue?". 

Count yourself lucky you only received a glare from the control tower. I wouldn't grant you landing rights at my airfield for a week.

**Tongues? Landing Strips?  Are we still talking about avatars? : 0

No longer, I guess.
**

 I've known you by that avatar for a long time, and she is only now noticing? 

Similarly, my wife just yesterday looked at my avatar and I had to explain it to her as if she had never seen it.

login names and avatars are part of that dwindling realm of do as you please.  When someone comes along and suggests your avatar or login sends the wrong message, well, I'm uncomfortable with that level of control in a personal preference setting.

That said I wish it were as easy to change my login name as it is my avatar because sometimes we want to change.

Keep your avatar as you would like, or get closer.

 Oh, I get all the practice I can stand, and then some. ; ) 
Right, you mentioned you don't have a Wacom above. I don't know how you exist without one. I've been using tablets since '83 when the menu was actually printed on the surface of the tablet and the pen weighed about 10 ounces and got really hot after an hour of painting. There's my geezer story du jour.

It's good you've got work. 

Attached Link: Mikeall gallery

On-topic:

Check out Mikeall in context to this thread.

His context is quite specific as he is recreating mid-20th Century pulp covers. So, not only does his aim cover a painterly effect he is also layering in print effects, and "real world" distressing. Sometimes I'm aware of how he got there but usually its a fun ride through an alternate past.

My distinction being, his clarity of choice as dictated by his context and my disatisfaction because I am struggling to keep the rendered details and yet add in painted elements. It just puts more pressure on my painting abilities. 

 bonestructure,

I'm not sure we disagree. As mentioned above, my stand is that post-filters or hand-smudging edges and details isn't doing you any favors if you have spent vast amounts of time making detailed textures. But dirty textures isn't the whole battle. 
You mentioned lighting and level of detail, all very good points. I would add that atmosphere is also important. Every picture doesn't need to be wrapped in fog or haze but there does need to be some attention paid to air quality. Part of that sting is the feeling that all these pristine sharp edge objects are in a vacuum. And getting rid of that can employ any of those attributes mentioned above and more. The vignetting you did on Damnations is a simple technique but does a lot to warm up the picture and remove that sting I'm pointing to. DOF is another simple trick. 

BTW, a little OT,

I had the cataract surgery done on both eyes a few years ago. It worked really well for me, I've been very satisfied. I hope you are able to get it done as you can imagine it makes a world of difference. 

cheers

 True, and I mention the animation only as historically where this search started for me.
To stay in context with Mark's original question, I think you have to consider what each person's goals are. 

For Mark, and many of us, the goal is to remove the antiseptic sting of a clean 3D render. If the goal is to make a computer painting that looks like an oil painting or watercolor there are many programs and techniques for getting there. And as you mentioned above, not surprisingly, they require painting!  : )

Mark's request was for the technique that doesn't require painting. My response is, those popular photoshop actions often step on your rendered information doing more damage than good. But I'm being general and specifically there are all kinds of post tricks one can do to minimize the 3D curse that don't require turning the whole image into a Rembrandt or Van Gogh. 

And don't get me wrong, doing the latter can be cool too. Like I said it depends on your goal. 

Mine specifically, and how I got interested in this thread, is dealing with sequential story panels and creating a cohesive style that I can apply to 3D images so that I can feel free to paint in other elements and not worry about the two worlds clashing. I do a lot of post already adding effects that are too time consuming to do in 3D. Time is always an issue. And as such I guess I should stop rambling.

It's all very case specific and goal dependent. 

cheers

 vintorix,

You're certainly welcome to your opinion. 

A couple of things I had to consider before coming up with my opinion:

In most cases, the script solution was being sought because I was dealing with 30 fps, and a day or two per frame in that case was out of the question. That filtered look might work for some people, depending on the context. For that human touch the filter-solution wasn't acceptable and the compromise was hand rotoscoping on 3's. It lowers the motion resolution but looks more hand drawn because it is.

Currently, as comics or storyboards, I don't have to concern myself with that kind of motion but still have a significant number of frames to push through. Simplifying the style would help that a lot. But then I'm also using 3D as a way of getting all the rich details of well defined texture maps and don't want to lose the work there. Clearly, if I'm after a more graphic appearance it will require some style choices that will be a balance of processes. 

Back to Mark's initial comment, making a 3D image painterly, you have to consider whose style are we talking about? Rembrandt or Wyeth, et al. 

 The stock image referred to is her stock backgrounds she has created and sells. Didn't see the reference to gimp but character looks poser-like. I think Pinkx3 wants to take a game screen grab and make something like this. But now I'm guessing. 

See also this thread:

[ Overpainting 3D renders - a shortcut to the painted look?

](http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2773033)

 Mark,
I'm weighing in on this subject a bit late but my opinion is the prospects look grim. As a painter from way back, TD's have been trying to push those filter scripts on me for years to try and get that painterly look. The major problem with it is it treats everything the same and so important details get more processing than they should. 

Separating the layers, as mentioned above, can help. Smudging everything with a brush is tedious and in the end will require some painterly skills as everything shouldn't be smudgy.

Martiniere, while I don't know his process, I do know there are people who can paint that kind of technical detail from scratch. I must admit while I started off there I find it easier to let the 3D program figure out all those shadows and reflections for me. 

While he may go very painterly with background and foreground details his focus remains sharp on panels and gizmos, appropriately. 

For me, I've been trying to find some way to drag my 3D illustrations back into the paint world but I've never been satisfied with any of it. It always ends up where I'm having to work over every inch by hand which might return some warmth to the image but puts a serious dent in my schedule. 

Whichever way you finally decide to go, I hope you choose to keep some of the details sharp. 

 Forgot to mention that Shader Spider is adding that extra bracket since the June 2008 update.

 Very interesting history lesson, BB. 
First off, I'm not here to judge. ; )

I do find it interesting that three different tex pkgs for M4 use, what I am now assuming is, your SSS color ramp. And I'm not saying they are wrong to do so. Thats between you and them.

But I have since learned that the color ramp is very subtle at adding not only red but blue and purple as well. Tweaking the values to ludicrous levels I could start to see where they come into play. 

Again the main colored ambient reduced down to a lower level seemed to make it all better.

Thanks for the info.

 Digging into this a little more yesterday I discovered that; yes, the ambient is 100% saturated red at a very low brightness level. Changing it to zero seemed a bit too drastic (to me). He shouldn't glow in the dark but the worst part is the red saturation which you can take out  separately with an HSB color picker.

Alternately:
In the alternate diffuse of at least three different M4 texture pkgs. there is a color ramp node that also uses a dark saturated red in the second color chip. Changing that can also help.

The problem, as I see it, with using lights to counteract the glowing red skin is:

1. The problem is worse when there is no lighting.
2. Coloring the lights with complements will contaminate surrounding objects that don't need color correction. 

Best to make the correction in the material room and save it to the library, imo. Or get SM to develop exclusion lists for lights in Poser. ; )