Boni,

Thank you for your instructions for adding shadow catching to Firefly renders in EZDome.

However, when I look in my Primitives Library in Poser 11 Pro, I do not see a prop named "roundgroundplane". Can you suggest where I might find it?

Richard

Boni posted at 7:36AM Sun, 23 April 2017 - #4287505

First. The shadow catcher described by Snarky is strictly for firefly renders. Because of the pbr nature of superfly at the moment in Poser true shadow catching is not possible. I faked it with a glass like surface that I can't quite duplicate ... but am working on. Just use SG's shadow directions for firefly renders in the meantime.

Here is your instructions.

• in EZDome add Sun for light.
• Library>props>primitives>roundgroundplane
• in the material room, Poser Surface root node bottom area is "shadow catcher only" check that box

This should help you accomplish what you want.

We sort of cross posted ... I hope this helps any way.

I've put all of the matmatic files I've downloaded here:
C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser 8RuntimePythonMatmatic

I've attached a screen capture of the directory. Interestingly, I see compile.py has today's date.

Richard

bagginsbill,

Perhaps this isn't the right place to bring this up, but I'm having trouble getting started with matmatic.

I've followed the installation instructions, but when I click the Matmatic! button, I get this error in Poser 8 SR3 running on Windows XP x64:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:Program Files (x86)Smith MicroPoser 8RuntimePythonmatmaticcompile.py", line 12, in ?
    import matmatic.compiler
ImportError: No module named matmatic.compiler

I get the same error on a new PC I'm building with Windows 7 64-bit, again running Poser 8 SR3. I note that both machines have "(x86)" in their path, and wonder if that is the problem.

Also, even though I wasn't a Beta1 user, I downloaded the new version of compile.py from your free-stuff/matmatic page, but the same error message resulted.

Can you help?

Richard

bagginsbill,

You're right, the tear looks good. Very good. This is just what I was looking for.

I downloaded and installed matmatic, and will start playing with it and the scripts you've included here when an animation finishes rendering overnight.
 
Thank you for all of the excellent work you've done, and for the articulate, well-reasoned documentation too. This is tremendous.

Richard

Thank you, bagoas. You've suggested what appears to be a workable solution.

I'm especially interested in paragraph 5b: ''... create a spatial function in the (u, v, frame#) domain to do same.  A combination of a paraboloid for u and a trochoid for v, truncated in v, will bring you a long way."

I've found an example of a Poser procedural material that draws an indented grid using "P" nodes and Math_Functions: Multiply, Step, Sin, and Add.

I'm trying to reverse-engineer it now.

Richard

Thanks for the reply, templargfx.

I have considered using a texture too, and then incrementing its U/V_Scale and U/V_Offset parameters during the animation. That might work well, despite the distortion of the texture.

Still, I really want to try a cleaner, procedural-only method, if only to learn how to do it.

Richard

Thanks for the link, saibabameuk.

Vanessa looks good, and it's interesting to see a tear fall from a Poser character's eye.

I'm just guessing, but it looks like the tear may have been added in postwork.

Richard

For my Poser animations, I export with Movie Settings > Format: Image File in PNG format, then import them into Adobe Premiere Essentials using its Import > Numbered Stills checkbox function.

However, Premiere's WMV export function has mysteriously stopped working for me, so I'm now looking for alternatives too. Any further recommendations with the "Numbered Stills Import" requirement in mind?

Thanks,
Richard

Hi,

Thanks, Anakele. Apparently the Expansion has been replaced by the Assistant.

Richard