Irfanview is a free viewer that can also do the conversion.

Attached Link: http://www.resellerratings.com/

Any time you search the net for best prices, don't forget to check the reliability of the merchant. A lot of the lowest prices are from companies that aren't interested in selling products, but charging credit cards and holding onto the money for a few months. The lowest priced merchants, selling digital cameras, are infamous for such practices unless the customer opts to buying an overpriced accessory kit (which sometimes is just the normal items packed with the camera).

Attached Link: http://creativecorner.home.att.net/tutorials/KPT6/goo.htm

The real power of the Goo plug-in is that it has very sophisticated brushes to integrate the distorted area with the rest of the image. Between the iron and smooth brushes, changes can be made to look very natural. I haven't seen another product with that degree of sophistication. As an example, take a look at my linked tutorial It's good to see that Corel has released the filters again, though it's a shame that they're still priced for a commercial instead of a consumer market.

I've actually been trying to index what I've got on all the archives I've saved to disk. I've been using MS Word to sort the files and associated thumbnails and have had to break things up into smaller documents because Word can't handle the file size getting too big. I'd love to share what I'm doing, but the documents add up to over a 100 Mb in size. It's almost a losing proposition because there's so much new free stuff being posted every day. It's at least my small effort to try to add some order to all the content I have. I've got about four disks fully indexed and small portions of the others. One freeware product I'd recommend, to at least provide an index of everything you've got, is Catfish (download from cnet.com). It creates a searchable list of files on a disk or hard drive very quickly without taking up much space. Since I'm opening a lot of files up, mostly for the first time, I'm truly amazed and appreciative about how much incredible stuff people have shared with us.

In my version of Webster, here's the definition of "hobby", under which falls "hobbyist": "A subject or activity pursued for pleasure rather than for payment." At the moment, I fall under that category. It is true that "hobbyist" can be used perjuratively. It is always amazing how some people can get overly hung up on how art is created rather than what the final result is. Poser is a tool. 3dsMax is a tool. Maya is a tool. A pencil is a tool. A good artist can, with practice training, excel at any of these tools. A bad artist, with no real vision or understanding of composition, will still produce crap. The bad artist may create glossily rendered crap with a high end graphics program, but it's still junk.

I truly appreciate all the freebies that people have been providing. Admittedly, I've spent more time downloading than using all these freebies. I use Catfish (a freebie CD indexing program) to find items I'm looking for. I'm also slowly trying to index all the content I've got, with thumbnails and comments, to make it easier to find items I want to use. I'm starting to use that content because I'm finally using Poser to create drawings. There are a lot of great freebies out there and more of it is good than bad and a lot of it is incredible. There's the occasional clunker that I'll never use, but there's also a lot of stuff that will prove useful. It's just a matter of time till a particular drawing calls out for it. I wish there were more time to thank each and every individual that takes the time to provide something for free to the community, but I download far more stuff than I'll ever use (I have a horrible packrat mentality--but I also never know what I'm going to render next). There's just not enough time to thank everybody individually. I still need to look up zip files to let a few creators know that I'm using their freebies in my images. In the end, that's why creators are sharing their work--to see others productively using what they made. For everybody that has contributed to the community, I give my thanks. Don't let idiots dissuade you from what you're doing. There are always going to be freeloaders who think they deserve a free ride in life and never appreciate anything they receive. They don't represent the majority of people, but seem to have more time than brains to disparage things they should be grateful for.

Poser has a very weak "undo" that only seems to work when manipulating a figure directly. That means that most actions taken require a save prior to doing them so that a user has something to go back to. Adding lights, parenting props, and a host of other things cannot be undone, so it's best to save the file before taking many actions. If you're just playing around with files, and don't care about the end product, just start a new file.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=517273

I haven't got the history that everybody else has, but this was the first image I did for Halloween this year. Since I'm trying to keep things simple, it's a complete image rendered in Poser 5 with a quick Photoshop color adjustment and a painted shadow under the arm.

> An email to ask. Is that really so damn difficult? No, not to ask, but sometimes email addresses change. I emailed one person, for a prop I used, and it came back undeliverable. It wasn't used in a commercial image, but I wanted to let the creator know that somebody was using what they so generously provided to the community. I still need to extend that courtesy for a few more props in my gallery's images. As Poser directories grow in size, it becomes harder and harder to keep track of what came from where. I have a hard enough time trying to properly sort installed things into directories that make it easy to find props and accessories. In cases where zipped names aren't the same as the files, it's all the harder to go back and find out where an item came from and what kind of image restrictions it has. If I want to use something to create a commercial image, it's really up to me to find out what, if any, restrictions exist and honor those restrictions. It would be nice if everybody used the same language for the same intent (I've yet to figure out how a few agreements say the item is in public domain, but cannot be used for commercial images), but nobody said life was easy. To provide an example of how far I can change a pose, my Ogre drawing started with a stock Freak pose, Smash01, and ended in something completely different. Using the Freak's starting pose was somewhat of a false start. With the two arms overhead, I thought that I could IK both hands and parent them to the axe and swing it from there. Big mistake. I'm still learning, so I've at least learned not to waste time doing that again. In this instance, there are no commercial restrictions on using DAZ poses in an image. I wasn't trying to start an argument on this issue as much as find out if there was some general community acceptance on what is okay or not okay. It doesn't sound as if there is a set standard on this issue. I use poses as timesavers. It would take longer to find a pose that's exactly what I want than to get close and tweak it from there. I have a set idea of what I want a Poser drawing to look like and the end result is mine. Anything that helps me get there faster is a good thing.

Attached Link: Most awesome Bryce/Poser Pic

I'm not a professionally trained artist. I'm only starting to produce Poser art that I'm reasonably satisfied with. I really don't see that I'm in any position to criticize anybody's Poser art. There's art I like and art I don't like. I can usually tell from a thumbnail whether an image is worth viewing. If the thumbnail doesn't grab me, I don't look any further. Whenever I see an image that doesn't impress me, I don't see a need to critique it. It might be the best that the artist is currently capable of doing. Why dash this person's efforts? Part of the problem with critiquing any artwork is that we all have a different vision of what is good. There are some tried and true theories of composition and layout that can be the basis of providing comments. Even applying those theories overly much can be stifling. Try being a judge at an art contest that provides those rules as the yardstick for judging art instead of simply relying on what is emotionally satisfying. The best artwork isn't the most compelling piece, but the one that most followed the hidden rules. I'd rather just post praise. If the work isn't good enough to rate excellent, I won't post a rating. Over the course of time, an artist can look at their gallery and see what got the most comments and ratings and use that as a yardstick for what is working and what isn't. I've looked at the top lists in the gallery and have been somewhat amazed by what is rated highly. The most highly viewed image is not the most impressive piece of Poser work I've ever seen. I cannot figure out why it has almost twice as many views as the next most viewed image. There's one artist who has a large number of images in the Most Commented section and half as many comments as the most commented image with only 3% as many viewings. I'd rate about a third of the most viewed and most commented images as not being particularly good art. The Best Ranked listings are a little better. I don't know if some of this art is on the top listings due to fraudulent practices or if they're part of cliques that are more actively promoting one of their own. It's always possible that a lot of other people think some of the art is much better than I do. I need to take the time to look at more galleries and provide good ratings and comments for work that isn't getting the kind of notice that it should. That's the only way to raise the overall class of what is out there. PS: The link I posted is the most ambitious Poser/Bryce image I've ever seen. I don't know if I could say it's the best piece of artwork I've ever seen, but it is truly the most incredible thing I've seen here; with a literal cast of thousands.

I guess I don't consider twenty minutes of some quick corrections as being "post work" when I compare it to eight hours of producing an image. It really is post work, but it's a few quick things to enhance what was considerably more effort.

I'm a little surprised that the majority of replies come from people who have had some formal art training. I fall into the other category where I'm mostly self-taught with a little influence from teachers in regular school art classes. Most of my early artistic influences came from comics. That helped me draw human figures, but left me somewhat out of touch with the finer arts. I did expect more people to have mostly had digital art in their background because art programs have been around long enough that a child could have grown up creating art on a computer as their primary means of expression. Most children still start drawing with pencils and crayons and wouldn't be introduced to computer art till they were 3-4 years or older. The average parent probably wouldn't buy computer art programs unless their child had developed some prior interest in drawing. The mix will probably lean more to digital in the future. Part of the slowdown to a more digital approach to art is that schools still tend to be somewhat behind the times with computers because of the costs involved and the difficulty in finding teachers that have a strong computer background. The best graphics programs are still priced for a commercial market. Poser has come down in price, but software that's over $100 still tends to scare away casual customers. It would probably be difficult to find an art teacher that's as well versed in various computer programs as today's art teachers are in different artistic media. A safe bet I could make is that most of the people on this board are self-taught in using these programs.

That's interesting because here's something I quickly drew with my left hand. I signed it lefthanded to show that there's not a lot of facility with that hand. I've found that I've got to make short quick strokes to make anything look reasonable. An effort to sign my name cursively was completely illegible. From a lefthand control standpoint, I've probably got no more dexterity than a 3-year old, but I've got an adult's eye for what I'm trying to draw. The thing that's funny about the sketch is that it has a sort of children's book simplicity to it. That's not what I intended. It's still almost something worth exploring more if I had the time.

So the assertion that right handed artists draw well with their left hands... Not great, but you can probably draw a more realistic human head, even if it's squiggly from using a hand not accustomed to drawing, than somebody can with their good hand. Instead of something that looks like a refined smiley face, you'll have a head with a ridge for the eyebrow and details that come from a lifetime of drawing experience. It's not going to be a masterpiece because your left hand isn't trained, but your eye for art is trained. If an artist lost the good hand in an accident, the other would eventually be able to create works equal to the other. That's because you draw with your brain. Your hand, mouse, camera, or whatever you create with, is just the means to share something that is already in your mind or something that you have the unique vision to discover. Most of my computer art is done by my left hand even though I'm a rightie. That's because I was starting to develop carpal tunnel in my right hand. It took a few weeks to develop some facility in my left hand, but now it's a fairly natural process to use it with a mouse. At work, I use my right hand and, at home, use my left. I still can't draw great with my left hand or write with it, but that's only because I haven't forced myself to develop some facility for those activities. I remember seeing a news special about an artist that lost his arms in a car accident and now draws with his foot. When I was thinking of the artistic "Eye", I was mostly thinking of an artist's inner creativity. I tend to think that creativity is something that can be nurtured more than it can be trained. Technique can be taught. Training can improve an artist because it shortens the trial by experimentation by showing them what more experienced artists have learned. The best artists would seem to have something that cannot be trained. > "Not everyone is born equal in intelligence... but they can BECOME equal" This is just my thought, but I don't think everyone has the same potential, but the potential most people have to do something is more often limited by themselves than by what they are capable of doing. The top artists, athletes, and mathematicians probably have some genetic advantage that all the practice in the world will not let others achieve. Having said that, I believe that anybody can achieve far more than they can imagine in any field that they desire if they work at it. The greatest limitation is giving up. A child, that only draws when forced to in a school art class, will never be as good as one that draws every day at home. It's not that the latter child is necessarily gifted as much as has probably been encouraged to draw and has learned to enjoy it. The first child can readily be a better artist, but has either decided to not try or has found something else that is more fun to do. The more somebody does something, the better they get at it because that practice is making new connections in the brain and reinforcing those that already exist. Somebody who doesn't practice those activities doesn't have the learning advantage that the practicing person gains. A great movie, about genetics vs. determination, is "Gattaca".

I guess I'm a bit confused by some of the responses I'm getting. I'm not disparaging people who provide Poser content or people who use Poser to create art. The best content providers are gifted artists in their own right. I don't have time to learn how to create 3D objects, so I'm relying totally on content I've purchased or downloaded from various Poser communities. I'm very grateful that they're out there. Without the talent of the 3D artists, we'd all be limited in what we could do with Poser. I view Poser art as being drawings. That may not be the right classification, but it's the way I approach it. The toolset and skills are different from traditional media, but the end result is an artistic work. I've been fooling around with Poser since version 1 and have tried all versions with the exception of 3. Poser 1 and 2 were mostly artistic aids. There were no expressions for the models and, by today's standards, they were primitive. Poser 4 & 5 upped the ante and added enough functionality to Poser models, with morphs and improved figures, supplemented by even more improved models from DAZ and others, that true drawings could be created with Poser models. I'm not an artist by trade, but have some artistic skills. I can do a decent pencil drawing, but haven't been as happy with more fully rendered images using paint or other media. It seemed as if every time I painted an image, I lost a lot of the initial spontaneity of the pencil sketch. I've looked to Poser as a means to create more fully rendered images, but it's taken a long time to get to a point where I was happy with anything I've done. Posing takes a tremendous amount of time to get right. On the other hand, once the poses are done, the render takes a much shorter amount of time. It balances out. I can produce a better finished product with Poser than I can with other media. It takes time to get used to the change in work flow. I'm trading the speed of laying out a drawing on paper to a slower method of posing Poser figures, but I'm getting back a more polished end product in less time. That's not a complaint as much as an acknowledgement that it's a different medium with different requirements. In the end, the best art is going to result from the vision of the artist. The tools are only the means to get what is in the artist's head. That inner vision, or the "Eye" or whatever anybody wants to call it, is what differentiates one artist from another (be it Poser, painting, photography, sculpting stone or sculpting 3D meshes). Give two people, with the same mastery of an artistic technique and the same tools and the end result of their efforts will be very different products and one will be consistently better than the other because tools and techniques are only part of the equation to creating an artistic piece. Having a good eye is necessary to create the best works of art. Practice improves that inner vision. A person can look at a drawing they did a year ago and see how to make it better. ToxicAngel's stuff is amazing, though I'm getting a little jaded by Poser pinups, though the pinups are very well done. Other Poser artists that impress me are: Flak ("Siege" will not your eyes out--it's so incredible--it might be the most detailed Bryce/Poser image ever) http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Flak Yamoto ("Kyoto the Dream" is brilliant) http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Yamato Bubba (though his Bryce renders are more impressive than his figure work) http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Bubba Fatale (a bit more pinup stuff than I like, but done with an attitude, look at "Remains of the Day") http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=Fatale