I did a restart and I was able to get the reflections to work... When I was having problems the first thing I looked for was to see if raytracing was on... I also double checked the reflection nodes.... I also double checked to make sure there was a value set. After the restart, I set everything up the same... did a render and viola! I now have reflections. I have also had a little more luck with the lighting though I still can not get angle start to work. I have had some luck rendering the distance end and start but they are not really showing in the display window, this makes it extremely difficult to adjust settings to get decent lighting. P5 definitely works better when it comes to these settings. I found the distance settings were working when I was messing with the sketch rendering... I was able to use that as a reference to my adjustments. Maybe there is a reason the settings are different in P6... I just have not seen any reason why? Christian

Don't know what to tell you, It is real easy in p5 using the anisotropic node, an effect like this usually requires raytracing. Good luck. Christian

I didn't see any place where they were selling the images. Also my Spanish is not the greatest either but I think the copyright on the bottom says that the images belong to the authors... not that the owner of the web site is claiming to be the author. From what I gathered it looks more like the site is used to get reviews of the images along with email addresses. Regardless it is still really messed up.

Dave Cooler may be able to help, he works for Curious Labs and Daz to help prevent piracy. From what I heard he is a copy write attorney that just happens to dig Poser.
CoolerBear@att.net, if this address is not current try to get in touch with someone at Daz. He is your man for cease and desist letters.

I hope this helped,
Christian

Attached Link: http://www.reiss-studio.com/

Reiss is still working on the new plugins for P5 that will export to Lightwave, Max and of course Maya.

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

I am one that thinks P5 Rocks. I am a little partial as my company has been working on instructional videos for P5. I can tell you that P5 is still a little slow and lacks open GL but other than that you can not even come close to the same value in any other 3D package. The material room is based on Renderman, the same type of material node set up that Pixar uses. Endless possibilities.
The cloth and hair dynamics would cost you thousands of dollars in another package.
The new properties and parameters pallet is worth the upgrade itself, giving you so much more control over your dials.

P5 has so much to offer that unfortunately gets buried by all the bad press from Curious Labs mistakes of release a buggy program. I would say that 95 percent (or more) of those bugs are fixed and if you are wondering if it is worth the upgrade, I say hell yeah.

Christian

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

You should be using the hip.
By turning off IK and moving the hip it is the same thing as moving the body. The only difference is Poser knows how to keep track of body position relative to bend position and thus be able to tween (create the in between movements) when you set key frames like going from a sitting position to a standing position.

Moving the hip allows a character to move like a real human. Trying to get out of a chair without using your hip... It doesnt work. So to get a realist pose you need the rotation of the hip, generally in the X axis.

• One last note - most poses will work best when you start from the top of the bone structure in the hierarchy. Just like a human the hip/stomach is the center of body, in a 3D model the hip is the top of the entire hierarchy. Most body movements (minus arm movements, or from the neck up) will work best if you start with the hip and work your way down to the feet or in the opposite direction to the chest or shoulders. The positioning of the bones in this order is known as forward Kinematics. Taking advantage of forward and Inverse kinematics, I was able create an animation pose with the character moving from a sitting pose to a standing pose (using the technique I mentioned in my last post) in less than 30 seconds.

I dont mean step on your post Jagger, sorry.

Christian

Try this.... Understanding what I am about to tell you will make your sitting pose a lot easier.

Start with a default character select the hip and rotate 70 degrees in the X rotation.

Now go to the figure menu - and uncheck both the right and left leg "Use Inverse Kinematics".

Now Zero (move the dial back to zero)the X rotation.
Notice the figure moves in the x axis rather than bends.
This is the key to getting the character to stand up without the crazy exaggerated movements that don't make sense.

After you have your figure in the sitting pose, set a key frame at frame 1

Now go to your desired ending key frame and before you start to pose turn the IK back on - on both legs.

Now raise the character from his hips until he is standing straight up.

Now set a key frame

This is a basic sit to stand animation pose. Now that you have this, you can then try to work on the in between details like moving the hip a little forward (at the start of the lift) to offset his balance and to simulate the stomach muscles doing the actual lifting of the body to an up right position. Or the arms pushing off of the back of the chair, etc.

Understanding the Spline editor will make a huge difference in making your poses look natural but it does come at the cost of a little bit of know how... It is not hard to master you just need recognize that motion generally moves beyond what you pay attention to.
Example move your hand like your are swatting a fly. Your hand does not just get to the destination and just stop. It actually passes the destination then comes back to where you initially wanted it to stop. (usually too fast to see more of a blur) This is one of the Disney dozen animation theories know as follow through. This is also the basic principle of a Spline animation interpolation curve. The curve assumes that you want anticipation (another Disney animation principle that starts a little in the reverse direction at the start of your movement, ) and the follow through at the end. The Spline animation curve does its best job of trying to Interpret (calculate) this for you.

Linear Interpolation:
If you have ever tried to animate an eye closing in Poser and you have the default Spline Interpolation curve on you will have noticed that the eye gets really exaggerated in the open and close positions, this is because it is not really appropriate to have anticipation and follow through on a blink. This is where you would use a linear Interpolation, giving you more of an exact movement.

BTW The camera movements work the same way with the Spline curve.
I recommend Un-checking the animation checkbox on your camera until you are completely finished with your poses then last animating the camera.

Also try experimenting with Focal and perspective. Perspective can give you some really dramatic results that really give your animation impact.

One last note a little plug for a soon to be released web site. Poserinstructionalvideos.com
All the things that were mentioned here are included in easy to follow video tutorials.
This stuff is so much easier to understand when someone is showing you rather than trying to just explain it.

Anyways, hang in there Poser has some amazing tools that are very much underrated.

Good Luck,
Christian
Producer Online Instructional Videos, Inc.

Sorry no ideas for free, but Godaddy.com and CQhost.com offer really affordable web hosting. $9.00 - $13.00/month

Attached Link: http://www.cocs.com/poser/marketplace.htm#MATPoseCreator

In addition there is a free Mat pose creator called Mat Pose Edit (I think 2.0). I think you can find this in the free stuff here. My recomendation - especially for Poser 5 is using the Mat Pose creator 4.0 from cocs.com/poser/

I hope this helps,
Christian :)
PoserInstructionalvideos.com

You do need Pro Pack or Poser 5 to take advantage of it. The Poser 4 Pro Pack book by Richard Schrand has a little bit of info about the use of Python using Pro Pack. For the most part these scripts will help you automate some of your task. In addition some of them might clean up some of the extra scripts from the program or from characters to help the program run faster. If you are not a programmer,,,, Use with caution, and make sure you back up your Runtime before any attempt at using them.

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

Here is how to add a Runtime:
Using the add runtime button / click on the up arrow folder in the library until you see Poser 5 and the Download folder at the bottom of the screen you will see a plus icon This is where you add Runtimes, (like your Poser 4 runtime)
If you do this it makes it so much easier to manage content.

Location of your Runtime:
Your Runtimes can sit anywhere,

• in the poser directory,
• on the your root drive(usually your c drive)
• and technically you can put them in your Download folder though I would say that this is not really a good idea. Reason being it will be really easy to get confused and accidentally put files in the wrong folder.

Some things you should be pay attention to if you do this:

1. Make sure that all the folder names are exactly they way they are in your Poser 5 Runtime. (Example make sure that you type libraries exactly like this, if you were to type is Libraries or library or something like that you will have problems).
2. Some of the Victoria 3 items might have a problem if she is installed in these extra Runtimes, I have even experienced some minor problems installing her in my Download Runtime. It could have been just me, but I have seen other people complain about similar problems.

Also note you will have to pay attention to the path when you are unzipping content, if you are using the download folder you are probably already doing this.

I am going to eventually put up a video tutorial on this in the Tips and Tricks chapter in the http://www.poserinstructionalvideos.com/ web site.

Hope this helped,

Christian

There is also poser tutorials on the CD as well. Maybe that will increase the value a little. Christian

The flash option works but is not totally necessary, (Unless you are doing animation for the web) Here is what I do, I select cartoon or cartoon with lines document display style. Animate my scene then I go to animation/make movie/select the "Use current display setting" and then I save my movie as an AVI. It renders fairly fast. Definitely try the sketch render too, this one is really cool and surprisingly it also renders quick. If you want really - really want a cool cartoon render - Poser 5 has a new toon shader that can be applied to anything.... The results are amazing...... It is way better than using the cartoon display mode. :) Good Luck, have fun expermenting!

What can I say that has not already been said. Steve and Karen, Thank you so much for giving me the opportunities that you gave me. It is rare to find people in business that think more of their customers than the money that they make. I have seen the meanest post in these forums from people who had no clue what sacrifices you guys made for this program and more so for the people who use it. Both of you are really special people. Your down to earth personal approach made a difference in so many peoples lives. I am confident that great things will come your way. Karma always seems to catch up with you eventually. Again thank you so much for everything, Christian