Quote - Keep in mind that if speed is a top priority, you do not HAVE TO render with GI every single time.  This should be obvious, but I keep hearing fretting about "gosh will it take longer to render with GI huh willit huh???"  If you want to render without shadows, without polygon smoothing, without any kind of quality options whatsoever, I'm sure your renders will be really fast.  They will look like, well, what they are (renders with zero quality options) but they will surely be fast, at least compared to max quality options.  This isn't specific to Poser, it's true of all CG - quality costs time, and max quality may not always be the priority (e.g. in animation).

I know quality takes time. Speed is not a huge priority for me although I don't think I could do super high settiings and have it render overnight or my old pc would probably die. I skimmed this thread after coming home from a night out with friends ( note to self :reading and comprehension are not your friends when alcohol comes into play )

About halfway or a little above settings would be fine for me and I don't think that would increase the time too much.  

Does anybody have anything to say about the new rigging? Did you notice a huge difference in the way these new figures bend compared to ealier figures? Im curious about how much of a difference these new features will add.

What can I say? Im speechless. Such a dramatic difference for not that big a speed difference. I take back what I said about being worried about the rendertime.

Wow! Been away for a while now but I found out about this today and Im impressed. Im a little concerned about the render times but the results are stunning.

Seems like now it will be a lot easier to set-up things and not fiddle endlessly to get just the looks I want, be it realism, comics or whatever tickles your creativity. Im not sure artisically that is such a good thing...I.e It's getting closer to turning into a make art button and I do like a challenge instead of point and click. Not that Im complaing at all. It's a trade off and a good one I think. Less time involved setting up scenes more time rendering. I'll take that deal anyday because it means It will free up time to get some realworld things done instead of tedious fiddling and lots of hair pulling. Time is money and I don't have much of either these days so I need to be efficent. P8 looks very effecient :)

I have to say Im really impressed that much work went into it. I was sort of expecting minor changes but this looks big. The rendering engine finally looks impressive and so does the UI.
The whole parameter control thing that DR and others mentioned and the improvements to rigging is huge and something I hoped they could do without running into compatibility issues.
The content looks pretty impressive too coming with extensive morphs and texture variety right out of the box. Something they should have done a long time ago for thier base figures.

I for one would like to thank all who took the time to post info about this and the whole team in general. Although I doubt I'll have the money or time to purchase it right off the bat Im surly looking forward to it when I can get around to it. Im sold. Impressive work.

Sorry if Im sounding to much like a fan but I think the people who work on this stuff don't get enough credit but they really deserve it.  It's also nice to recieve a complement every now and then instead of piss and moan all the time which gets old faster than conversations about religon & politics. Oh shit did I mention them...Sorry!!!

Quote - Just jumping in for the moment, but isn't there too much Gc in that render?  The skin texture looks somewhat grayish, something I have seen when you over Gamma Correct with darker skin.

Yes it is very CG looking. It was the lighter texture I used and I washed it out with too high IBL and I played around with VSS settings badly. I only posted it to reference the lashes. It wasn't a "hey look at how real this looks" just a Im having problems with lashes but the Zuloni character with my asian eyes morph looks pretty cool pic. :)

Quote - JB123: Hmm, I wonder if it's the straightening itself or the incorrect aspect ratio I used that causes the problems. If I kept the lashes straight but changed the aspect ration as to minimize distortion, would that help?

Looking at your re-mapped lashes, it doesn't look like straightening those out should introduce that much distortion.

I'm happy to take a vote on this one.  If we go back to curved maps for the lashes, I can always supply masks for procedural shaders, so it's no big deal.

I think your right it could very well be the aspect ratio causing the distortion. I still think there will be some but not nearly as much. I think what you said would work.

Heres a pic with B3D's Zuloni charcter/texture mixed with my asian eyes morph and VSS applied. Cool stuff works quite well with Zuloni. Great character and texture btw. For the lashes I had to use the lashes shader OFD did but I still get too much smear/clumping than I'd like.

Hi Odf

How do you feel about going back to the standard mapping for the lashes? Reason I ask is because Im having trouble not getting stretching and or clumping with the current straight mapping. Im not sure this it's so good for textures. Im curious to see what Baggins Bill comes up with. I know he was working on some procedural lashes ealier in the thread.

Here are is a comparison pic in blender of the current straight mapping and standard mapping ( curved ). Notice how much distortion the straight mapping has. I think with the current straight mapping your going to have distortion problems with textures.
To be honest I will probably re-map it ( atleast for my own renders ) unless Baggins comes up with a shader that works better for close ups.I know straighting Uv's on something that naturally curves can be notoriously difficult ( if not impossible ) to get distortion free.
 

Quote - Thanks JB123, I think I have some movie files with the guy from Zbrush you mentioned. I get most of what you said. "locked axis morphing" ? does this mean morphing only in z or y? Zbrush has a slider very much like you mention.  Do you try to feather the edges of the morph basically spread it subtly out at the edges?

  Avoiding sharp changes makes sense. So then smile lines creases-wrinkles is something you might add as a separate morph all its own yes? I know I have to just get in and experiment on my own, but I like to ask questions if I get the chance.

odf: you mention them moving like a rubber sheet? So basically you don't want the edges-vertices bunching up too closely together in any one spot, yes?

Somewhere in this thread was mentioned an idea of groupinng morphs together by using  a suffix or prefix  to define wheather or not a particular morph plays well with others. I like that idea, though I'm not sure the average user would learn what they meant.

Yes locked axis ( morphing only along X, Y, or Z axis is exactly what I meant ) As far as feathering edges yes but I really try to avoid it altogether if I can by only using grab or move tools. If I do use other type I use very low settings and build it up slowly. Adding seperate sharp creases like wrinkles and such is not a bad idea but it's more work but you have to kind of pick your spots and stick to it for all similar morphs or it looks strange. I.E if you have ripped abs 1 and ripped abs 2 regardless of shape changes those deep cut should be in the same place or they will look odd when combined.

I did mention about the suffix/prefix thing. I used ODF's user name as the Acronym
O=Only morphs independantly
D=Does morph well with others but at a limited range
F=Fully reversable ( or atleast close to )

Btw do you know about Zbrushes morph brush? You can load a different sculpt and morph brush away parts you don't like then smooth out the edges after. Pretty cool. My brother has Zbrush,  he showed me this and since I can't do it in Blender ( AFAIK ) and can't afford it Im very jealous.

Spanki thats very interesting about morph speed ( aleast in the sense that you were taking about ) I never really thought of it like that before but I do lessen certain undesired effects to slow them down by using less of it.  I like using the timeline with a wireframe to see exactly whats going on over time. It's a good way to judge what could be less or more to make a smoother transition between morphs.

Quote - By the way, did you find symmetry easy to achieve when making morphs with Blender?

Yes it works really well however if the mesh is not modelled symmetrical ( mirror opposite ) you can have problems. The more asymmetry modelled in the worse it gets but If the mesh is modelled  with subtle asymmetry it actually makes your morphs look more realistic. 

Did you model Antonia with some subtle asymmetry? I haven't noticed any problems using symmetry when sculpting.

Quote -

I have a decent sized list of morphs I want to make and I don't want to start checking off my list until I know for sure the geometry isn't going to change.

If you want to post the Morph list here or pm me and odf with the list, I know I'd appreciate it.  I'm planning to do so more facial and maybe breast morphs, and I don't want to duplicate the efforts you want to do.  Sort of like reinventing the wheel. I did some expression morphs from a list, but we have enough folks doing morphs NOW that we can duplicate efforts without meaning to.

Does this sound like a good idea to others?  Doing up a list of morphs to do or really desired, and then a catch as people get to them kind of list? I was thinking of some 'fantasy' and 'scifi' morphs for the face, if JBL123 wants to add to the racial morphs already started?

I agree a public list might be a good idea but I see no reason why we can't have more than one person doing similar morphs etc. I know if I make a hips wide morph and someone else does too they will be different. Say my hips wide morph does something that someone elses doesn't and vice-versa but together if gives you just the shape you wanted. The more options the better.
If people wanna do similar morphs I say go for it. It can't hurt to have more options. I'll probably add  JB at the end of my morphs so that poser doesn't have a fit if someone else has a morph  named the same. I have no idea how poser would handle the same morph names, never tried it so I'll just add the tag at the end. Time for bed, I'll post my list tommorow.

Quote - Oh cool! JB123, I have been wondering how a person might go about making modular morphs like that, that would play well together. Any chance on a follow along? How do you get them to blend well with eachother? 

Well it is alot of back and forth that's for sure. It's not an easy thing to pull off and Im really just learning how to do it. I have seen the idea talked about on a few CG forums many years ago and theres a guy on zbrush central that did a set of individual eyes,noses and lips that was really cool. If you've been there you've probably seen it. 

Back when P6 first came out I tried making modular morphs with magnets for james that mixed well but I failed badly. I always wanted a figure that could mix morphs and even reverse well but nothing existed until Apollo came out. I have to say Anton is a master of this technique and I have no clue how he does his. 

So lately I have learned blender a bit and practice sculpting fairly often. blah blah blah get to the point right. Lol. How is it done? For lack of a better word I wing it. Here are a few things I do and I assure you it's nothing special.

I put some thought into each morph before I make it.
I try not to detail the hell out of it if it's meant to work with other morphs
I use locked axis morphing alot. I try avoiding things like rotation that can create pinching especially on areas that already have creases or tightly spaced geometry. When using scultpting brushes I use the grab tool mostly and if I have to smooth things I use a very low setting and make several passes. I try to avoid smoothing because it a can really affect other morphs if it smooths to much but on another morph I used less smoothing. Which is the main reason why I like the grab brush ( especially with locked axis ). almost exclusively. It's more work but much more precise.

I use keyshapes in blender. There is a slider that  you can adjust positive and negative values so you can easily see how good or bad it looks at high pos and neg values. You can use the timeline to blend them together to check what works good and what needs to be refined. When I have a morph that works good ( enough ) at 1.5 and -1.5. I then export the morph at 0.750. That way the morph is more subtle but has a greater range. I don't always do this but it helps alot sometimes. Sometimes I have to go into edit mode and adjust things vertex by vertex. Sometimes it just doesn't work and I start over from scratch...sometimes theres not enough time in the day and I give up and try another day. Lol.

So thats it nothing special.  Just alot of tweak,test, fix,rinse and repeat.

Quote - JB123: Those eyes look fantastic. I like your concept of making both modular morph sets and independent individual morphs very much.

Contact me if you'd like to put some morphs up for review on the developers site.

Just to be sure is Antonia's geometry final? I have a decent sized list of morphs I want to make and I don't want to start checking off my list until I know for sure the geometry isn't going to change. I'll PM you and send some up for review when I get quite a few done. It could be a while though because I don't want to rush it.

Here is a wip morph I did today. Im a big fan of the modular approach to morphs, so I will be breaking down specific head morphs ( such as ethnicity morphs ) into facial regions such as eyes, nose, etc. as opposed to a full character head morph. That way you can mix styles. Although I may do some scratch built full character morphs as well. What I mean by scratch built is totally new without any of the seperate facial region morphs present. Reason I don't like to do this is because when you make a full charcter morph based on the individual facial part morphs to make a character then you go and use those individual facial part morphs the effect compounds. So I won't be re-using morphs to make new characters they will be different and more flexible this way. Anyway let me know what you think.

Cheers
JB

Quote - The thing is, I need to see how every single vertex moves when I go between 0 and 1 on the dial, then fine-tune the morph vertex by vertex until it's exactly right. If Poser can't do that, I need to find a tool that can, and doesn't burn a huge hole in my bank account (not to mention a steep learning curve). I have to say, I was never that impressed with Poser in terms of its interface and usability. So unless someone tells me that the new vertex brush is the bee's knees, I guess I won't even bother trying it.

The question then becomes: do these things work well enough in Blender to be worth the effort of wrapping my head around its palimpsest of chaotic widgets and idiosyncratic, undocumented hotkeys, or should I just spend the extra time and write my own tool which will do exactly what I want the way I want it? I have to admit, I'm starting to lean a bit toward the latter.

Hi OFD
Blender does work well for precise morphing. From my experience ( which isn't much just the bare basics ). It may be worth a try to learn atleast the following things.

A. Selecting vertices in edit mode and moving them on a fixed axis. Right Click verts then use G-key to grab and press X,Y or Z to move verts along that axis. Left click to confirm. You can even create vertex groups for easy re-selection.
B. Sculpt mode
There quite a few tools here but there really simple to learn in a day. Symmetry with Lock Axis X,Y or Z is awesome for sculpting along a fixed axis for more accurate sculpting.
C.ShapeKeys
This kind of works like poser dials where you can dial values and mix morphs. You can animate them with the timeline to see how they blend. There is alot to learn with how shape keys work but the blender site has a good wiki article all about it and it took me a few days to get the basics down.

Note: I do not recommend to use Multi-Res>Catmill Clark option when sculpting. This option has given me problems in the past ( moving verts I never sculpted on ) even when bringing it back to it's original level. I think it's bugged. Instead you can use add modifier>Subsurf to see details while sculpting.

I can't guarantee you'll love Blender in a few months but just give the three things I mentioned a try and I think you'll find them very useful. As Joe suggested, practice is your greatest teacher.

Quote - JB123, I think you're missing the point a bit here. I have a functioning pmd, always did (it was the pz2 I was calling it with that I initially had problems with). But DAZ Studio does not have native ability to read a pmd; it requires a special script. I'd prefer to work with a file format it can read natively. Not a biggie, I guess....

Ah yes. I see what you mean now I was just reading a few pages back were Joe mentioned about poser saying not a valid file type or something. You guys post too fast and Im just catching up to what I missed over the past few days.