Wow I would have almost been interested to read that if I hadn't skimmed down to the insults first.

Wow congrats on the engagement!  Definately sounds like a keeper.  So glad that Tigger is doing so well too. /hugs

I don't think we really got hit THAT hard where I live.  Houses are in very short supply in my immediate area, so the housing market really did not take much of a dive if any.  Gas, food all that stuff was expensive here to begin with.  We did see prices over $5 a gallon at one point in some more remote areas tho.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1832944&member

Next for me is the actual image maps used.  Do you need to use realistic photos? Not always, but they do tend to give the best results.  Take a close look at your own hair.  Tho you may be blond or brunette or a redhead, you will notice that there are actually many many shades in your hair, and that one strand is rarely the same color from root to tip.  For realistic colors, photos are just the easiest way to achieve this.  Transparency maps are very important as well, and really the only advice I can give on those is they take practice.  A lot of models come with very good transmaps to start with.

Shaders.  You can really make or break a hair with shaders.  And not every hair should take the same shader setting, again it's going to vary on the model.  I like to go for a low intensity specular setting set fairly large.  I usually start with a specular value and highlight size around .3 and adjust from there, that gives you the soft look.  i then use the alt specular node with some anistropic plugged in to get the shine.  A little bit of translucence and a good bump and you are on your way with the shaders.

Lastly, render settings.  It does no good to put all that work into shaders and textures if you arent going to show it off with a good render.   I know a lot of people like to turn shadows and raytracing off on hair to save render time, but you will nearly always turn out a very flat looking hair in comparison to leaving it on.  Also turning down your min shading rate will bring out more detail in the hair.  If I am looking to really show off a hair I will turn it all the way down to 0 most of the time.  I'm attaching a Screenshot of the render  settings i used on the linked render to give you an idea of what I use that seems to work well for me.

Wrong.

Quote - Do search in the galleries (search by artust) on the names he gives in and you'll know what he's refering too. I personally don't care for their style and for me the characters don't come to life at all in those images, I do find there's something missing. They're not telling me a story at all. For me they're dead, they don't speak to me, they don't tell me anything, they're just standing they're looking into an empty space with empty eyes. They look a lot these young teen models you see in magazines, looking empty.

But if that's what your looking for the answer to your question is very simple and one word..... postwork. Learn to photoshop. Seriously, you need to learn to use photoshop to accomplish these kind of images. They've got very little to do with Poser. The main character was rendered in Poser, the rest has been done in Poser. If you study some of these images closely, you will notice that some the hair and clothes handdrawn in photoshop.

All you need for this is a very basis skill in Poser. You need to know how to pose a nude character, give it a body texture, at times know how to add some basic hair and perhaps some clothes, a light here and there (but not too fancy) and know where the render button is found. That's about it. The rest is done in photoshop and similair applications. You need to know all about those applications and very little about about Poser. You need to know how to postwork, that's what they mainly rely on.

Imo all these images should be in a photoshop category, but that one still is missing. But that's a different discussion.

I'm not real convinced by your arguements that you have looked at the artists she mentions.  It is possible to get results like that with minimal to no postwork.  Just takes practice and an understanding of the program.

That looks to be Lykia hair maybe.

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=61074&

I am happier to buy quality over quantity any day.  There are a handful of vendors that I have no reserves about buying their products at all when I see something I like, because I KNOW without a doubt that they have taken their time and have produced a good product.  Likewise there is another handful of vendors that I have to REALLY think long and hard about whether or not I will buy something because I have been burned in the past with cheap products.

Yes, I just spoke to him a little bit ago again, he's promised to check in with me a couple times a day now hehe.  He said 8 houses were lost just up from where he works, and they had a fire just up from his house, but that one got put down quickly.  Going to be scary until they get them all put down tho.

It is Sylphiad ;)

Quote - I live in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, yesterday the weather seemed to break all records (46.4 degrees C, or roughly 114 degrees F). We were surrounded by smoke haze, and even though I was not directly affected (ie was still safe) it was really frightening.

Thank God its much cooler today, but the truth is that numerous lives (as well as property) were lost in the rural areas yesterday in South-Eastern Australia.

Not to pry, by where are you?  Glad to hear the area isn't in immediate danger yet.  My friend is in Rowville.

Fires are a part of every summer here in Alaska, tho they are not very publicized.  My first summer here we were at one point cut off by highway by the fires from any other main cities, and have seen firsthand the total devastation left behind. 

I've got someone very close to me in Victoria as well, so really keeping an eye on this one.  For everyone's sake I sure hope they can bring the fires under control soon.

Congrats!

I often use the ambient channel with a greyscale map specifically designed for the glow effect I am trying to create.  This method will not actually "cast light" onto any surrounding surfaces, but I get a pretty good result  in most cases with what I am trying to achieve.

Did you also install the updates for poser as well?