And I suppose that's more than likely if the one on the inside is less flexible than the one on the outside. In this case as a for instance the spine pokes through at the top of the neck  if you over push the outer pose. Easy enough to readjust and often good to pull back a notch anyway.

Yes M4 and the skeleton are moving around fine together now. I see what you're saying,it's down to fine tuning as regards the head. Morph his mouth and then adjust the skeleton jaw to match.Obvious now that you say it.I was expecting the head to conform in the same way as the rest of the figure which now that I think about it, considering how much detail and movement there is in the face makes no sense at all.Thanks for that.

Edit - Just gave that a run through, works a treat, Michael 4 he say "Ah!"

Ah  I haven't described what I mean properly. I understand what you're saying about the jaw being able to move without the mouth having to open but If I open the jaw on the skeleton or on Michael it's always the skeleton's jaw that moves and it breaks through the bottom of Michael's  jaw so to speak, it pokes through,micheals  jaw doesn't appear to move at all.  I was expecting Micheal's mouth to open, and the skeleton jaw with it if I dialed enough in but they don't move in unison at all if that makes any sense.

Got you on the IK. Thanks I'll turn it off.

Edit - Hmmm no, just tried that and even with IK off on Micheal the knees still poke through until I zero the skeleton.

Ah the good old days when I used to do all my photo-montages with a keen eye, a steady hand and a bunch of Swan Morton scalpels and glue! Remember glue? 

Last year sometime, or was it the year before I was at an exhibition of surrealism and there were some Max Ernst collages there. Near perfect,barely a visible seam! Okay it was a low light show to protect the work from the ravages of light I suppose and my eyes aren't what the once were.(hoooray for the zoom tool!)  but still,amazing skill,not to mention an eye for a strange image.

Caleb Kimbrough does some great free textures here,lostandtaken.com/
I found his site the other night. I don't know if there are any cotton textures there,certainly a lot of good quality photographic stuff of assorted surfaces.I'm just suggesting this for anyone who is interested in textures generally.

Sounds very much like you should have stayed in RGB. Set to dull colour is a bit of an odd turn of phrase for a printer but anyway yes as thundering says,you should ask the printer what space they want the files in. I usually run a print off to go with files I send to my printer too just to give him an idea of what I'm looking at on screen.

Depending if you have a major book store near by they often have a good selection of books on sci fi / fantasy mat painting etc. Do what I do and go find your self a quiet corner and browse a few. Don't get fooled by the glossy pictures,yes sure they look fab but some books are all pics and no solid techniques.

There's an awful lot of 'learn from the digital masters books' out there that look great but actually tell you very little at all. You don't want to end up spending a fortune on a book that's actually got barely a couple of vague lines in there on actual technique.Some books have a knack of looking the business until you get them home and then for some reason all that you thought was in there has mysteriously disappeared. Bitter experience of many moons ago speaking here!

Hello,newbie in the Photoshop forum!
Oh yes I know about CS5. Who told me? The guy at Adobe live chat when I had cause to find out why someone at Adobe had billed my credit card for a photoshop CS4 upgrade without my authorization!
I phoned them on Friday just out of curiosity to ask how much an upgrade from CS4 to CS4 Extended was as it wasn't listed on the website.
They told me the price,asked me if I wanted to buy it and I said no,I wanted to think about it and I'd get back to them if I decided to go ahead. (No chance at that price)
Three days later I get an email confirming my 'order' !
Talk about hard sell.
Would you like to buy this?
No..
Ker-ching!

Not an upgrade from 4 to 4 extended either,no, an upgrade to 4 which I have already. A windows upgrade, so wrong OS for starters and I wasn't even aware that my credit card was on their system! So  that's how I know about CS5. Yes,my very first post in the Photoshop forum and already I'm Mister Grumpy! ; )

Now I've got to phone them again tomorrow as apparently an unwanted and entirely useless boxed upgrade is winging it's way to my letter box as I write. Sigh....

Quote - In a nutshell, Morph++ packs for both V4 and M4 are injectable poses which gives the ability to change the overall morphology of each character into something else uniquely different than the base model.  By spinning dials within their properties, you can add and subtract musculature to the mesh, and alter both body and facial features.  In essence, you can create an endless list of characters for your scenes and situations.

I told him that already! ; )

(Although to be fair, your explanation does have a certain edge in the clarity stakes....)

Hello Musikman and welcome aboard! I've only had Poser for a few days,I took the plunge while it was going cheap (well cheaper anyway) and I can't leave it alone. Burning the midnight oil with it tonight.
Someone else here will no doubt give you a far better explanation than me but of the downloads you have ready and waiting,M4 base is actually MIchael 4 basic model himself (same goes for V4.2 that's the Victoria base model)
Morphs are an add on extra that you have to buy,(maybe some are built in to the base model ,to be honest I've lost track now as to what was free and what I had to buy because I originally started off using them in DAZ3D a few weeks ago but just didn't take to the interface) they allow you to manipulate body parts to create different characteristics, thinner ,fatter more or less muscle,different facial expressions etc (see Arcadia's post further up the page about morphs with links for where to find them) Poses I think is a set of pre created instant poses you can use as a starting point rather than start entirely from scratch I suppose ,though just from my own brief  experience you'll learn more from posing a figure from scratch.

Anyway,like I say someone far beyond my feeble understanding will probably fill you in.My only advice would be to read through  the reference manual and the tutorial manual but don't stress about it,one step at a time and easy as she goes,and as you've already discovered,this forum is an Aladdin's cave of friendly advice and info!

Oops! Honestly SamTherapy I'm really not that bothered about it. I was just curious that's all and j thought I'd ask the question in case it was something  I was doing wrong rather than just the way it is. Poser is a whole new world to me and I'm just trying to get my bearings and understand the whys and wherefores of how things works. To be honest I hardly  know my texture maps from my elbow in poser at the moment, but though  I have  M4 and a bunch of morphs muscle maps and so on  I can't see anything other than the basic texture anywhere so I guess that's all I have.
I actually only came to notice the  blur because I was trying to get rid of the hair altogether on a character I was playing around with!

So yes,not stressing, I'm really enjoying this program, I've been buried in photoshop for the past umpteen years so It's good to get out to pastures new.
Thanks all for your explanations,much appreciated.

Sorry Medzinatar, didn't see your second post before I posted though  I should have since they are an hour and a half apart.

Okay yes ,I see what you mean and sure,less pixels stretched out over that area,less detail. But why less pixels? As I said I am very very new to 3d so I can only wonder from a poorly informed point of view but it just seemed to me that even a basic model should be consistent all the way around and altered and built upon from that stage.After all if I bought a house I wouldn't want to walk around the back to discover half the number of bricks per square metre had been used to build it because the builder thought perhaps I'd be mostly living at the front of the house and wouldn't be too bothered by the gaps and then left it up to me to fill them in if needs be! Mind you with some builders over here I wouldn't be at all surprised if that did happen!

Anyway ,just reading through threads on this forum I know things are not going to be that straight forward, but then again as you say there's usually a solution too assuming I can get my head around it.

The textures are standard/simple but then I would have thought that even so the front should match the back.  I've looked for higher res ones as and where you suggest but  but can see nothing other than the ones I've been using.

`Excuse the pun,but perhaps I'm in way over my head with this at the moment!

Actually I've just looked at Victoria 4 and she displays exactly the same characteristic. Distinct dividing line across the top of her head and blurred back from that line.

I do understand that these figures are meant to be added to with hair etc and I am after all at a very early and basic level with all this, it just struck me as a little odd that there wasn't a smooth transition across the head front to back and I found it a little off putting.Its no biggie.Just wondered if that was normal or something I was doing.

Quote - Just a thought.

And a good thought too. There's no harm in diving into a program and running around like a kid in a toy shop grabbing at stuff to see what it does,after all that's how I learned a whole chunk of Photoshop in the beginning, but sooner or later you have to go back and learn the whys wherefores and therefores or you tend to end up with bad habits, frustration and a limited grasp, and the longer you leave it the harder it is to go back to basics.As with any new skill  It's about striking a balance, a bit of playfulness and creativity mixed with perseverance, practice and study.

Actually that probably only applies to creative software.Flying jet planes, paragliding and scuba diving,definitely read the manual first...

Wow,thanks for all the info Arcadia! Just a quick scan through tells me it's all going to be very useful/essential to know. I'm slowly working my way through the Poser tutorial guide pdf  learning program basics and interface and so far for the basics at least it's not the steep learning curve I thought it would be. Mind you, somewhere in the back of my mind I can't help thinking that perhaps I'm not even in the Poser foothills yet never mind caught a glimpse of the mountain!

But yes,without a good grasp of the filing system and some sensible organizing I can see confusion raining down on my head sooner or later. It took ages just work out where my V4/M4 morphs etc were.I just thought I'd made a botch of loading them until I found them under poses.

Hey Kaos! Sorry, I feel like I've hijacked your thread a bit,not my intention, just new here myself and hunting for good info and help. atb