Hm... expensive... I would actually be willing to pay quite a lot for such a feature. Let me put it like this: At the moment, Poser 4 is of very limited use for me. It's directory-system is far to unflexible and the way that many items - freestuff or marketplace stuff - are offered, it becomes more and more unmanagable with every item. An easy to use archiving-system on one or several CDs, would make Poser a more managable and more usable product. I would be willing to pay quite a lot for such a programm alone. And sorry: PBoost isn't what I am talking about. I am really talking about a programm that reduces folder-waste, installs, de-installs and gives me a preview. (I have to work with my programm - not with the task of making my programm work.) Joerg

I think that such a CD is not worth any amount of money. First of all, Renderosity-Freestuff fills far more than one CD. You could probably fill 3 or 4 DVDs with all the freestuff available. Second, the internet offers a lot of highly effective search-functions and google will give you a lot of results if you enter a search-query for "p4-woman clothing freestuff or freebie". What I would consider paying for, is a CD or DVD-Collection, with a graphical interface that shows me how certain items on the CD look like, and automatically install those items if I like and need them - as well as automatically de-installing them if they are no longer necessary. Another feature should be the correcting of folder-use. A lot of freestuff-designers deem it unnecessary to use the Poser-directory-system, instead putting their geometry in the root folder or into the character-folder, adding textures here and a lot of unnecessary stuff there. In the end, after installing a hundred or so freestuff-items, you get at least 200 to 300 new folders into your Poser-directory and one hell of a mess. Add an auto-install and auto-de-install as well as correcting this mess and I would consider paying for such a service. (As well as allowing you to redistribute my stuff in this fashion.) A simple search-function or database is not enough to be worth anything. Joerg Weber

I am often doing such stuff for a friend who owns a Tattoo-Studio. Doing this with Poser is possible - if you are willing to do a lot of postwork. I create the Pose I want in Poser, render the whole thing, import into Photoshop (all at very low resolutions - about 500 x 500 pixels) and start with reducing the amount of colours, using the Liquify-Plugin. After Photoshop-Postwork, I open the whole thing in Expressions, a special vector-graphics-application by Creature House. I start painting over the original picture, until I get the desired result. This way I may change border-width and line-width at the demand of the customer, change colours accordingly and so on. I do not think that a pure Poser-Render would ever produce a good Tattoo. There is however a service for people who want a tattoo, that may be provided with Poser: People often ask, how a certain tattoo will look on their body. Now, Poser is perfectly suited to give them a preview. Not only with their current body, but it will also give a good preview of the changes a tattoo will have, if they gain or loose weight. Copying a simple scan of a design into a poser-template doesn't take much time (10 minutes or so) and I ask 15 Euro for such a preview of a tattoo. Joerg

Here is an amazin example for the "droplets and plastic wrap"-technique: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=24818&Start=1&Sectionid=0&Form.Search=wet+skin&Form.Criteria=ALL Sadly, one of the most amazing examples was obviously removed for being to erotic in nature. It was almost 2 years ago that this picture of some damsel in distress, bound to a pole in some waterbasin with corcodiles popped up. Great picture... But I can't find it anymore. Had the best postwork-wet-effects I have ever seen. Joerg

As far as I know, you can only simulate such an effect in Poser 4 (I don't know about Poser 5). Most other rendering applications offer a so called "Shellac"-Shader (3D-Max) or a mixed material (Vue d'Esprit) or something comparable. When using a Poser-Figure in 3D-Max, simply create a new shellac-material, instance the original Poser-texture into slot 1 and add a transparent, reflective and very shiny shader into slot 2. You can add a bitmap with small droplets into the function-tab, to restrict the shiny-shader to certain areas. It works quite well for me and I am certain that other rendering-applications offer comparable methods. Vue d' Esprit and Bryce have to go another way: Simply make a new, shiny material and give it 100% transparency with a function. Add a bitmap to this function that looks like a negative version of the droplets where you want the wet skin to be. In the same menue (Vue d'Esprit) you can add a texture to appear under the original texture. In this tab you need to add the original texture. Looks quite good but is one hell of a project, since Vue forces you to do this with all of the materials used on the Poser-Object. I have tried comparable techniques in my old RayDream Studio and it worked. A friend of mine uses Cinema 4d and also uses this way. I guess that's the only way to get acceptable results. Another version I see quite often is to simply fake the wet effects by adding "droplets" and "plastic wrap" to the texture, using Photoshop or some comparable application. While this seems somewhat unprofessional, I am quite amazed and impressed, what results some people got with this method. Joerg

I have a pretty simple texture that turns the standard Vue-Firtree into a a-proxi-christmas-tree. THe only problem is you will have to turn of the preview and try to render a lot of times, since Vue WILL definitely crash as soon as you create a mixed texture with any one of those textures having a glow of some kind. If you really wish to loose your sanity over Vue, I can send you the texture. Joerg

I know... typicall sysadmin-method: block first, think... later... naw, why bother thinking, when you can block something? I'll happily take 2 spam-mails a day if I can communicate with people. Blocking those 2 spams at the expense of loosing my ability to communicate is like cutting of your right arm because people you do not like tend to shake your hand. The problem in this case is a well tended "nerdism" among sysadmins. One of my friends is a sysadmin and he also likes to block things. She dislikes AOL - whups... suddenly no one in her net could receive e-Mails from any AOL-source. She dislikes Web.de - whups... suddenly all the web.de mails disappeared. Well, now she developed a dislike for hotmail and gmx - whups... guess what mails are going to be blocked next? A typical case. She never bothers to think for a second, that almost 90% of the internet-users in Germany are actually using a GMX or Web.de-account. She just blocks what she dislikes... Same problem with MAPS: Simply block everything coming in until they can prove they aren't sending spam. The whole thing has a funny twist: Their own e-Mail-adresses are MAPS-protected as well - making it impossible to contact them to prove you aren't sending spam. Very intelligent... Block all you like. It just happens at the expense of communication. Right now, 3 members of Renderosity will probably consider me an arrogant bastard, because I failed to answer their messages... Wow... Man... I am so happy some triggerhappy sysadmin had the ability to block mails and instantly put it to good use. Joerg

I could try. But I hate having to create lots of accounts because of some "anti-spam-service" that can't do it's job right.

But that is an area, that I would attribute to the illustrators area of image-creation, as it is mostly technical.Use of colour, light and spots-of-interest is a technical, measurable thing. In this way you could of course compare yourself with any artist.

I would consider them to be art. After all a lot of what we have today started with these drawings.

Actually I didn't wish to get ever involved in exactly this kind of discussion. Well - now it happened anyway. I am not looking down my very nose on those people. To look down on someone, you have to feel yourself above them. This is, where I think that some people misunderstood my point of view. I do respect those people for their abilities with Poser, Photoshop, Painter and whatever programm they use to create their images. I respect the ability to use such programms. I consider myself an illustrator - and there is nothing negative about this. In some areas, an illustrator ist far more capable than an "artist". An artist by the very definition of the word, creates "art" - whatever that may be. An illustrator creates illustrations. Illustrations are informative graphics, carrying a message, but no artistic idea. When I was 18 years old, I also liked the idea of being an "artist" and I was very shocked when my grandfather commented, that my drawings were more illustrations than artistic drawings. It hurt me at first, but it grew on me. I tried to create "art"... And it was pure junk. Not worth the paper it was drawn upon. It took me about 2 years to realise, that there was nothing bad about being an illustrator. I created sets of tarot based on art nouveau-styles or bauhaus-concepts. I created computerized versions of ancient books, mimiking the illuminations of 11th-century monks. I developed my own style at illumination, combining 8th to 11th century illumination with art nouveau-vegetabile patterns. Today, I have no problem with not considering myself an artist. Artists create art - I create things that look good and make a page or folder or whatever, pleasant to look at. I earn money with my illustrations. So why should I consider myself an artist? Is it necessary to consider oneself an artist? Does it help me to consider myself an artist? I think not. "Artist" is a word I would use for people who lived for the art they created. Picasso, Dali and comparable people are artists. I am certainly not, because Picasso certainly had a very different approach to image-creation than I have. His approach was expression - my approach is information. He expressed feelings, I try to convay a certain information. Can you imagine Picasso doing business-graphics? I cannot. (Well, he probably would have been able to do business-graphics - but I doubt that their informational value would have been acceptable.) Can I imagine myself doing something like "Guernica"? Well, certainly not. Maybe this explains why I do not consider people here to be artists. I consider most people here to be illustrators. Many of them far more capable than I am. But not artists. And I do not see anything bad about this. Both have their places. Why would I not consider someone doing a pin-up an artist? There is a simple reason for this: Respect. As a piece of art, most pin-ups aren't really much. As an illustration, I need not rate a picture by it's creativity and artistic content, but by the abilities of it's creator. If I call someone a gifted illustrator, I respect his abilities. If I call someone an artist, I respect his artistic abilities. So, if a picture seems not to be overly artistic to me, should I call the person creating it an ungifted artists? Or should I rate the picture by the excellence of it's execution, calling it's creator a gifted illustrator? being honest, I guess it would be better to view that person as an illustrator. Why is it so important for everyone, that they create "art"? Do you really wish to be compared to such standards as Rembrand, Dali, Manet or Van Gogh? I guess this is a comparison most of us would loose. But compared to people like Vallejo (Who I despise for his endless repetitions of the same basic theme.) or Frazetta (Whose pictures I love for his great personal style and weird ideas.) and numerous other fantasy-illustrators, some of the images here at Renderosity are really good. To bring it all to a point: I did not wish to insult anyone. For me, artist and illustrator exist on an even level. Calling someone an illustrator is as much an honor as calling someone an artist. But I would rate an artist by other standards than an illustrator. I can respect many people here as great illustrators. But like I asked before: Would you yourself call an endless repetition of the same theme (In this case "Nude vicky in a temple") "art"? This is no rating - just a question. Admittedly, I was somewhat shocked by Blackhearts aggressive reaction after my first posting. His reaction made any further discussion with him useless - and instantly polarized and poisoned the atmosphere of this discussion. Thanks a lot, Mr. Blackheart - aggression and insults are just what a discussion needs to become really useful. This also caused my admittedly somewhat stupid remark about vain people, calling themselves "artists" - that wasn't really helpful either. Please excuse this. I hope you can understand my position from my current "drivel" and that not accepting some people here as artists is not mean't to disrespect those people but is - in my way - a sign of respect. Joerg

@Rio: Well, like I said: I may well be lacking some vocabulary here, as the word "vain" seems to be more insulting as I actually planned. It was supposed to confer the meaning, that one should not call oneself an artist, but let others decide if you are an artist. How would Democrit been seen by history, if he would have called himself "a great man". Being a humble person is never wrong. Cesar on the other hand, used to view himself as "the great general" and "the best of leaders". Well, Cesar is also seen as a person with a very serious inferiority-complex. I do not wish to get in a heated and insulting discussion with you and I do not want you to bite your tongue every time you write something. I find this discussion with you most interesting. Like I said: I do not wish to insult you. Maybe this discussion just shows that we have a seriously different view of what an artist is. @Flaxynn: Well, I can't force anyone to buy my product. If anyone thinks he could use the product he or she should buy it. If not, well - my income isn't really based on the renderosity marketplace - it won't hurt me. As for my position in this discussion: Well, why should I be ashamed of myself? At least I saw this as a discussion. It seems you are unable to discuss such things in a civilized manner, seeing a discussion as an exchange of insults. @JVRenderer: You may have missed the fact, that I do not consider myself an artist. I do consider myself an illustrator and graphics designer and I have no problem with using pre-created stuff to achieve something. As for Ki - Ki has a manga-esque morph in the package - something I could use for an online-comic I am doing with a friend of mine. We thought about using Aiko for this comic, but Aiko never found much interest in the community which resulted in only a very few items being constructed for her. All in all: I need not live up to my high standards for being an artist, as I do not consider myself an artist. I openly admit, that I am using other peoples innovation to allow me to create my images. But I am also not calling my pictures "art". Joerg

Well, Blackheart - at the moment you are the one who seems to claim to be able to rate imagination. While I am saying that one shouldn't call himself an artist, you seem to consider yourself able to give this title. As for the Mona Lisa - Well, no one ever said it was his greatest piece of work. Actually the Mona Lisa is considered to be nothing more than a training-piece. What makes Leonard an artist? Well, for one point you could take the point that without Leonardo, you wouldn't have Poser. Leonardo daVinci was one of the people who discovered perspective and began with 3-dimensional analysis of the world surrounding him. He questioned church-doctrine and was one of the greatest architects of his time. He faced multiple charges for his scientific discoveries as well as his drawings. He also risked being put to death because of his anatomical studies - which were forbidden at that time. For short: While some people here are sitting before their computers, posing around with a programm and calling themselves "artists", people like Leonardo daVinci not only risked his life for his art, he also created the basics for what our "artists" of today are using. Or let's take people like Mucha, who influenced a whole period of art with his drawings, who gave a new definition to image-format, space-distribution and posing. There is art in creating the works that Mucha created - there is no art in repeating what he did in Poser. Everyone is capable to copy something that was done before. Creating something new is the real art. And that is one reason, I would never dare to call myself an "artist" - I rarely create something new. My web-pages have to look like some design that has already won a price, my pictures in the gallery are just comics. Well, maybe my shortstories are something new, but I wouldn't call this art. Now let's take Renderosities "Pin-Up-Production-Artists". Could you tell me what is so imaginative and new about these pictures? What makes posing some pre-created nude person before a precreated background, using pre-created textures and pre-created poses so goddamn artful? No way! I admit that Rio's picture is nicely done and shows a great deal ability with Poser, Photoshop, Painter or whatever was used. But the theme isn't really new. Well executed, but not an innovation. If anyone may call himself an artist just by the virtue that he or she is able to use a program, the word "artist" looses all meaning. If anyone doing some basics with poser is an artist, what are men like daVinci, Mucha, Manet, Monet? If anyone may judge any other person an artist, the word looses all meaning. I certainly won't be so bold as to consider myself to be able to say who is an artist. But I do think I can say what I do not consider art. And that's all this is about: My position. I do not consider these people artists. If you consider these people artists - well fine. I am lacking vocabulary here, but let me put it like this: Calling yourself an artist is vain. There is more to being an artist than just making nice pictures. And what is so bad about calling yourself an "Illustrator", "Graphics Designer" or something similar? There is no hierarchy between those names, making the artist any better than the "Illustrator".

Well, if you like... I always thought that "artist" was a title given to people, not claimed by them. Seems I was wrong.

Rio, this is not personal for me and I did not want to insult you. I really respect you ability with Poser and your abilities with postwork-tools. But would you yourself call your work "art"? Is it necessary for your work to be "art"?