DAZ has an update available the dosn't require 3Delight registration, new content, and a spot render patch. This should fix the problems your having.

I wouldn't say that the thumbnail was in any way better than the rest of the image. The image was (is) great! I didn't see anything wrong with it at all. I'm not good enough to lend any constructive criticism.

I've noticed that sometimes it helps to ask for some constructive criticism in your post. That's what I did with my firt post (about a week ago), and got some good feed back. I would have liked a little more, but what I got was very helpful. But be prepared for getting feedback that may "sting" a little, that's just part of the learning/growing process.

You may also get feedback that you don't agree with, or that doesn't fit the message you want to convey with the image. Our natural tendancy is to either get upset or ignore feedback of that nature. But a good way to approach it is to ask yourself "why doesn't this person see what I'm trying to convey". This opens your eyes and allows you to improve by seeing through someone elses eyes.

Do another Poser render, post it and ask for constructive comments, and I bet you will be pleasantly suprised.

I took the bait, and you drew a lurker out of the darkness. I had to go and look at your images. Very well done! Just keep in mind, it seems like anything with nudity gets a lot of hits, but not so many comments. Consider the hits as an indication that people liked it.

Anything without nudity will get fewer hits, but typically a much higher comment to hit ratio. My guess is it's because more viewers are actually interested in the image or art without nudity, where many viewers go at warp speed from nude to nude. Just a guess.

Of course there are those like me, who spend more time in the shadows because they don't feel thay have any good advice to offer other than "wow, that's nice".

ps: I left a couple of comments too. Excellent lighting on the nude.

If Reiss Studios is already stating that their Plug will support Poser 6, then the upgrade should be an easy decision.

OOOhhhh,

This is for work, not home, that makes a big difference.

Xeon Dual CPU 3.5 GHz? - yes
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4400? - yes (PCIe right?)
Max the RAM available? - 2 Gb or more
Cinema 4D 8.5 upgrade to Cinema 4D 9.1? Can't say
Poser 5 to Poser 6 (when available)? Yes, if it will remain a part of your workflow for some time to come.

If you are pushing your machine on a daily basis, the hardware upgrade makes VERY good business sense. Improved productivity will pay for the cost of the machine in a few months (2-6, depending on your salary, and work "habits"). You could also use your old machine to start a render farm, which will also boost production a great deal (I'd upgrade it to at least 1Gb of RAM though).

The upgrade to Poser 6, I'd say yes, but it's crap shoot right now. To me, the $40 savings over the regular upgrade price make it a no brainer, if you plan to keep Poser as a important part of your tool set. Just make sure everyone understands that it may be a while before Poser 6 is fully integrated into the workflow, since the status of usable plugs for Poser 6 to C4D isn't known right now. The improved render engine in Poser 6 should be justification enough, as you can use it to create high quality demo images without the exporting to C4D. Anything that streamlines workflow is always a plus. Of course Shade LE could prove to be a very valuable addition to your tool set as well.

"Should I also consider upgrading my computer or bying a new one?

I have
Xeon Dual CPU 2.40 GHz
2 GB of RAM
ATI 9600 (Powered by Sapphire)"

Mattsblood,

Just some food for thought about upgrading (machine and poser).

1. Poser is NOT multithreaded, which means your second CPU does nothing for Poser, in fact, when using Poser only, the second CPU actually degrades performance (but not enough that you would actually notice it without running benchmarks). There is no mention about multitreading support in Poser 6, so you could increase your performance with a single CPU running at 3.4 GHz or more. But, I use Poser 5 a lot on a 2.2GHz Laptop and have no real complaints about V3 performance, so your performance issues may reside in conflicts in the default IRQ mapping (Windows likes to assign everything to 11, especially the IDE controller and the graphics card - then performance really stinks for 3D work). Of course, if you tend to use your computer for other things while Poser is rendering, or if you have other applications that support multithreading, then the second CPU is a real plus!!!!!

2)If you upgrade to Poser 6, upgrading your graphics card to a Pro level OGL card may help a great deal. Although gaming cards do support OGL, they only support a small subset of the hardware accelerated OGL commands. Pro level cards (even on the low end, which are about the same cost as high end gaming cards) have much better OGL suport (hardware), and are much more stable in Pro OGL applications. Of course, this also depends on how much of the OGL instruction set that CL has put into P6. It may not have a real "rich" OGL implementation, and a high end gamming card may perform as well as a Pro card.

Bottom line, it's hard to say just how much of a performance boost the OGL support in Poser will give at this point. More info would be needed from CL to even begin to speculate (OGL support doesn't always mean good OGL support). As for upgrading your machine, first I would try to find and fix anything that might be causing performance hits. If your still not satisfied with performance, and have the funds, hardware upgrades almost always improve application performance, but then users will always push the hardware to it's limits, and things slow down, then it's time to upgrade (never ending cycle).

Just my 2 cents.

Good Luck!

PS: I pre ordered, too good of a price to pass up given the inclusion of Shade LE (may not ever use, but will be nice to give it a good try out) and the improvements in the render engine.

Sorry, I always forget to ask about PC/MAC. I'm out of ideas, I always had the same problem with CS3, but never really pursued a optimal solution as I also have Cinema 4D XL6, so it is my crutch for modeling some items (clothes) for Poser that CS has issues with. I'm sure that it is a solvable problem, it's just been easier for me to fall back on C4D.

You might try asking your question in the Carrara forum at Yahoo. It's very active, and most of the big Carrara gurus are there.

Good Luck

Gavitron

You might try Objacation Scaler from link in the message above (hit enter by mistake). It's free, and will alow you to modify the scale of a .obj before import into CS.

Good luck!

Attached Link: http://www.sandylodge.demon.co.uk/html/utilities.html

The scale on Poser figures is very small, and typically require enlarging when importing into any external application. Turn off the automatic scaling when importing the .obj from Poser and try a value of 20 in the text box (that's the default scale factor Eovia uses with the Transposer plugin).

All it takes to get Victoria 3 Base package is to register at DAZ, then download V3 for FREE (M3, and Akio are free also). I'm very much against software piracy, but let's not try to cast a shadow of guilt on someone who "downloaded" something - especially when it's free! Many free "add-on" packages are available for download here as well.

Pazkor,
The free version of V3 doesn't include the Head Morph and Body Morph packages (sold by DAZ on their web site - you can get both of them in a bundle for around $30.00 US), which is a requirement for most of the injection poses. If you already purchased the head and body morphs, your ready to rock and roll, just select the body part you want to change by double clicking on it (if your on a PC), and start adjusting the dials.

If you don't have the morph packages, there are a few add on items that use "magnets" and don't require the head and body morphs. You can find a few in free stuff here, and in the marketplace here.

Good Luck!

I used version 4 to make the screen captures, but everything is in the same place, and works the same in version 2. I double checked to make sure it was the same, since it was easier to do the screen captures and all on my laptop, which doesn't have version 2 on it. Eovia has been very good at leaving things in the same place during the version upgrade process, which makes upgrading a pleasure (not like some vendors who think each upgrade needs to look different with many things renamed or in a different location on the UI).

Good luck, have fun, and keep trying! The learning cure on any 3d application is fairly steep and takes a while(at least for me - I've been trying to learn now for 4+ years, maybe some day I'll get good at it). But, after a while it becomes less frustrating, and a lot easier to do what you want to. The user interface of Carrara, being very similar to Poser, makes the learning process complimentary for both applications.

If you use Poser a lot, and plan on making your own stuff for Poser with Carrara, you might look into upgrading to either C4 Pro or C4 Standard + the Transposer plugin. Carraras render engine is much better than firefly in Poser. Even Carrara V2 has a much better render engine, it's just more difficult to import Poser figures with the maps intact and working properly, and requires some manual editing of the materials (which really isn't that difficult - AFTER you figure it out). There have also been some good improvements to the vertex modeler, animation, and even better redering options (which is very impressive given the quality of the C2 render engine)

There is also an excellent and very active Carrara Group at Yahoo. You can find several tutorials on the web, which should help ease the learning curve.

Happy rendering!

Hmmm.... That's where it is in C3 and C4. I don't have C2 loaded on my laptop anymore, but when I get home tonight I'll check and see if C2 is on the machine at home, and let you know what I find out in the morning (currently no internet access at home)

Eric, Yes, and I drool a lot!