If anyone is interested, Poser 13.3.824 became available for download 9/12/2024.

This picture is for you Thalek. I don't know what's bothering you, but I can understand you well.

Thank you, that's very generous of you.  I have clinical depression, which has reared its ugly head again. It might be time to re-evaluate the meds,   (It doesn't help that I've had a few triggers that would push even a normal person towards depression in the last couple of years, two of them in the last six weeks.)

The image reminds me of a property we were both caretakers on, down in the Perris area a few years back.  Again, thank you.

It has become quiet here. I hope I'm not the reason...
And if so, I'm honestly sorry.

My world looks different than that of most people and sometimes I find it difficult to understand these people.

I have depresssion, so sometimes I drou out periodically, which causes apprehension in others soometimes.

A new version of Poser 13 was uploaded March 12th.

Testing out the new displacement node. The grass is the ground plane subdivided 7 times and uses the firefly noise texture as the displacement map. The bushes also have displacement but the Superfly node wasn't doing as well with that. It might be the image map that wasn't suitable for Superfly. The render only took 1:30 minutes.

The old displacement mode has been . . . displaced?

Where did everybody go?

Battling the depression, the failing heating system (and thus, the chill in the house) and reading a lot.

Thalek posted at 1:24 AM Mon, 6 November 2023 - #4477362

JustBeCause posted at 7:20 AM Sat, 4 November 2023 - #4477298

Would getting a large drive and doing incremental backups help any? If you did an incremental backup once a week, you couldn't lose more than a week's worth of work, horrific as even that thought is.  (Not that I've taken my own advice, but as drives are coming down in cost and increasing in capacity, it would be a good idea to start taking my own advice.) If you have a lot of files moving in and out every day, the average incremental backup would stay roughly the same size as the now removed files would not be included.

If you are running Windows, Karen's Replicator is still available, I have been told the author is no longer with us,  but it still works and is free.  It automates the whole backup process  and is really just a question of setting it up and letting it run in the background. The neat part is the program only makes incremental backups but the whole folder or drive structure is maintained.  This allows the backups to be quick but if a restore is ever required it is just a question of starting the process and letting it run.  The program has all sorts of options like the back up days, frequency whether deletions are propagated or not and many other options.   A quick search of the Internet for Karen's Replicator should find the correct version for the version of Windows you are running.  I have used the program for years and have also used it for recovery more than once and it worked like a dream.  

Thanks, I'll have to look into that program.

Yes, precisely! It's my understanding that incremental backup software makes a full backup the first time, and then only copies the changes for subsequent operations.  Especially for people who have large drives, it would cut down immensely on their storage requirements, and you can choose to restore just the most recent copy, or restore the full thing.  Possibly with options between, like just the runtime(s).  That's speculation on my part, but it seems like a reasonable feature to put in.  Most of the time, you only have to replace the damaged or missing data, not the whole thing.

And, of course, a daily incremental backup would take much less time than a full backup would, so Hornet3D would be saving time as well as space. The exact time required would depend on how long it took the program to scan a disk for changes (probably by scanning just the directory, rather than the entire directory; again, a speculation on my part), but it would still use less time than a full backup.  I currently use the program Everything to index all of my files on all of my drives to make searches easier, and when it initially starts up, it is currently set up to update its database.  I've never timed it, but I think it's five minutes or less. An incremental backup would take longer than that, but still, how long does it take to scan an entire directory of one hard drive, and then copy a few hundred files?

[chuckle] Guess I'll find out for myself if I start using this backup software you recommend.

Thanks again.

JustBeCause posted at 7:20 AM Sat, 4 November 2023 - #4477298

Matter of fact I backup everything I got 2 times or more, often I buy a new HD to make full backups every year especially for the 3D stuff. I never of thought loosing the work drive, this one can't be backed up as every day there are big changes and hooked up with all the temp, setup functions of 3D programs. A real add remove drive until as long as a project is not finished, then when done it gets moved to a drive and backed up. Something like this never happen in the past 20 years! 

Yes that Fog box can really be useful, I started making a sort of puppet master out of it. A morphing Atmosphere box, adding interactive master dials that will be also changing the animated enabled material node settings, this will ease up the effect you wish having for your renders. Now just waiting to see if Poser will get a fix for the render speed issues on the next update .....

Am I being Commodore Obvious here, or did I actually say something useful for a change?

I'll have to look into using fog occasionally again.

Passed some time enhancing the Fog Box and finally got it set up to work quiet well ....

Teaser of the Poser Godzilla that I just finished up, after a data drive crash that made me loose a whole lot of Models that I was working on the past few month.

Sorry to hear about the data loss.  It's why, after a similar experience, I collected up all my installer files for everything I could recover, in case I had to deal with another crash someday.

The Fog Box is looking beautiful there.  I haven't played much with fog since I got Nerd3D's Fog Tool years ago, and an experience with Atmosphere when I created a Godzilla image of my own more than a decade ago.  (It's in my gallery as "Illuminatus". Not nearly as good as yours, but I liked the effect of the search lights at the time.)

RedPhantom posted at 8:02 AM Fri, 3 November 2023 - #4477252

I haven't used the hair room in a while except to touch up some old hair. May have to try something

Thanks.

Thalek posted at 2:10 AM Fri, 3 November 2023 - #4477239

When I saw the notice that the final version of Poser 13.1 had been released (version 13.1.518), I went and downloaded it.  And then, wanting to get to be at least  a little more than a dilettante in my old age, I decided to try the joys of creating dynamic hair.  With both the Poser manual open in front of me, and the Poser tutorial on using the hair room in the browser, I set forth.  I gave the Andy mannequin a Fu Manchu-style moustache figuring it was small and would involve 1-3 polygon groups, so it should be simple. 

Everything went wrong.  I couldn't get the two sides of the moustache to be symmetrical with identical settings.  The drooping portion of the left side was longer, thicker, and tilted at about a 45 degree  angle compared to the right side.  I never got a decent density on the upper lip group.  Twice, my grouping settings disappeared and I had to start over. I stopped using symmetrical settings and started fiddling with length, pull back, pull down, and pull sideways in an effort to get a visually similar image. That didn't work either.  And Poser crashed on three separate occasions, the latest while I was waiting for it to render another image of the 'stache.

Since my batting average on reporting bugs was pretty much zero this year,  I thought I would check to see if anyone else was experience similar problems before handing in a new bug report..

If anyone discovers they're having similar issues with the new version, I'll write it up.  Otherwise, I'll assume that either I or my computer are getting senile, which is not something the Service deptment can really fix.

Not sure if it is something like this you are trying to make in the Hair room ?! Not really something common I am using, I could only make one render shot then also experiencing a Poser crash.

Just a very quick test in the Hair room ......

 

When I saw the notice that the final version of Poser 13.1 had been released (version 13.1.518), I went and downloaded it.  And then, wanting to get to be at least  a little more than a dilettante in my old age, I decided to try the joys of creating dynamic hair.  With both the Poser manual open in front of me, and the Poser tutorial on using the hair room in the browser, I set forth.  I gave the Andy mannequin a Fu Manchu-style moustache figuring it was small and would involve 1-3 polygon groups, so it should be simple. 

Everything went wrong.  I couldn't get the two sides of the moustache to be symmetrical with identical settings.  The drooping portion of the left side was longer, thicker, and tilted at about a 45 degree  angle compared to the right side.  I never got a decent density on the upper lip group.  Twice, my grouping settings disappeared and I had to start over. I stopped using symmetrical settings and started fiddling with length, pull back, pull down, and pull sideways in an effort to get a visually similar image. That didn't work either.  And Poser crashed on three separate occasions, the latest while I was waiting for it to render another image of the 'stache.

Since my batting average on reporting bugs was pretty much zero this year,  I thought I would check to see if anyone else was experience similar problems before handing in a new bug report..

If anyone discovers they're having similar issues with the new version, I'll write it up.  Otherwise, I'll assume that either I or my computer are getting senile, which is not something the Service deptment can really fix.

LF2's feet have exactly the same bones as LF's - they're just as posable, the only difference is that LF2's shapes are more realistic than LF's ;)

You reeeeally loved her feet huh. LMAO!

Nice renders!

Objects converted to OBJ with Blender. Then imported into Poser. From here: polyhaven.com