bloodsong, I know the feeling WELL about working all day on something in Vue and not being happy with it. Big difference is, you know what you're doing and I don't! Vue does seem to have some annoying little habits and limitations, but hell if I can as of yet figure out how to work around them without asking someone else. Far as your picture goes,though, the other day I was working on one and had a similar problem as far as trying to make the background objects "fade" a bit more, and i just ended up putting a huge cube between the foreground and background so it filled the whole scene, and then I txtured it with a smoke sort of material... I think I mixed it with a glass material as well, and after a few hours of messing around with the transparencies and the size and thickness of the cube, I almost got what I was after. I'm sure you've already though of that, but you DID say, "nothing too complicated"! Fortunately, I'm not capable of giving complicated advice! LOL As far as the skin texture goes, I haven't even yet reached the point of even trying to alter it or anything, so I would have nothing to say about that. Otherwise, I really like the overall composition--has a nice balance to it. Cheers, Mike

AHHH, so it's a TRICK! I KNEW IT! LOL...great job! What really had me wondering though is the fact that I can see your signature in the picture on the painting in the easel, so I was figuring you had a blank easel in the original and pasted the new pic on the easel in another app... maybe Photoshop, but I couldn't figure out how you achieved the perspective on it that you did. Anyway, that's a beautiful picture, and I'm looking forward to seeing more... Cheers, Mike

They have a Jimi Hendrix character? Where? This I gotta know since my Led Zeppellin pic failed since I couldn't find a Les Paul, but I have a strat, and If I had a convincing Hendrix...well, at least I could finish ONE thing! Mike

Yeah, Goldwave is the way to go, as far as inexpensive editors are concerned. I don't remember, because I bought the license right away, but I think you get 30 days of fully enabled use. Mike

Lip Sync people have stated publicly that if the CD gets damaged through normal wear and tear, they will replace it for free for life. So just take care of the CD. By the way, you can remove it once the program has recognized it, so it doesn't need to sit in there spinning around. I've tried every way I can think of to make a backup copy...it simply can't be done with normal equipment. Mike

Wow, Parkie, that is really cool! I'd be interested to know just how you got the picture in the easel. Cheers, Mike

That's wild... the guy looks JUST LIKE the guy who owns and runs this little convenience store down the street from me...only he's a Saudi Arabian, and a little lighter in color. Something doesn't seem right about the nose. Maybe it would help you some if you picked out a particular person to model it after, preferably someone you can get pictures of from all angles and then use them for reference. African Americans do have a specific genetics to them as do all races, but at times it's kind of hard to pinpoint and often it's more in the skin color than anything.This guy seems to have a little too much red in him, unless it's the lighting, but that IS a really great texture. Cheers, Mike

Maybe add a couple of rocks in the water too? Mike

Haven't yet checked out your page, bloodsong, but those dandelion puffballs (is THAT what they're called?) look really good. I mean, they look quite real. Great job! Cheers, Mike

Really nice pic. :) Good job! --Mike

Kate, Sorry to hear that, but you know, since you have Vue d 'Esprit, you really need not worry about Bryce anyway, because I can tell you that I have yet to be able to do anything in Bryce that I cant' do better, more easily, and quicker with Vue. That's not to knock Bryce, though... I don't know why you can't make a decent picture with it, because even I managed to eventually get something going. I liked it enough that I even got the full version since I started this thread, but I have to admit, I prefer Vue by far. I know what you mean about TS! LOL I had that demo and had to say the hell with it. I didn't have the slightest idea what I was doing, and never managed to do anything with it. Well, I take that back... I un-installed it with the UTMOST of sucess! LOL Cheers, Mike

Thanks bloodsong....again....Seems like an awful lot of work though, but I can see what you mean. It seems that for me and my newbie's grasp of Vue, it's real easy to slip up and accidentally change an important material, and then it's almost impossible to get it back. Bryce seems to be a pain in the ass this way too, but I've been playing with Vue alot and have hardly even touched Bryce. I have been doing as you told me as far as manually editing the mtl's, but then I started just putting my new textures into the same folder as my Poser exports go into, and that works as well. I know someone who is working on a small little app which will do this automatically if you run the mtl through it. I even tested a prototype of it, but it still has problems. Now he's busy with another (paying) project, but he's going to work on "Vue Master" again soon. Maybe the Vue designers will come up with some way of making the Poser import a bit more automatic so we all can spend more time making pictures than geekin' around on our keyboards and in our files! It'd be nice, wouldn't it? Cheers! Mike

Also one other thing...has anyone made a tutorial specifically geared towards importing a fully textured Victoria into Vue 3.1? If anyone knows of such a thing, I would LOVE to see it! :) Thanks again...(and again and again and..........) Mike

OK....I'm trying real hard to follow, but I'm kind of lost... I get lost in those extensive and deep options for materials...not only that, but I don't know if it's something I'M doing, but it seems as though Vue tends to "mix up" my textures somehow. Another thing I've noticed is that sometimes the same character will load with seemingly different texture(material?) names. What's the best way to get a Poser figure into Vue? I mean when the last Poser export screen pops up, and you have the options, "use polygon names" or something like that and others, what is best to check or uncheck? I know NOT to select "as morph target", but I'm not really sure how the other settings might relate to Vue. I also couldn't find "load function", or "other". Are we talking about Vue 3.1 here? Thanks again! :) Mike

Tell me about it! I just today learned how to scale things relative to other objects...it makes a HUGE difference! DOH DOH DOH!! :) SMACK Mike