Thixen,

I do acknowledge the reality of contracts and financing.   They could have another "MASH" or "Friends" on their hands if they found a cast and crew ready to invest long-term.  I could live with a few spin-offs, but I'd rather see them fly through space a bit more.

As for finding Earth, sure, I remember when grown-up Boxy led a team of children to do Bionic-Man type jumping around on Earth.  But, that was 70s writing with 80s special effects and it truly stunk.  Then again, the old BSG was a family-style drama with a robot dog and a grandfatherly Adama.   One of the things that has made this BSG such a success is that it's rough.  You can imagine the boredom, terrible living conditions, the stink and the stress.  Man isn't elegant and mature like we are in Star Trek, we're still sniveling drama queens who happen to have mastered space travel.  I think a BSG-Earth story would be fascinating and a crowd-pleaser.   Maybe I'll put my mediocre Poser skills aside and try to write a script myself?  It'd make a good BSG:  The Movie.

I'll reply to my own post with an additional question:   Any opinions on which figures work best with the face room?  I have found that the new G2 figures are not Face Room compatible.  For instance, I used G2 Jessi and when I applied and went back to the Pose room, it ignored my changes and just planted G2 Sydney!

I will be shocked if BSG does not stay on for years and years.  The storyline is rich enough for 15 seasons.

-- Technology - No death rays or teleportation.  Just enough technology to fly through space.
-- Cylons - Fueled by biological systems and somewhat vulnerable like us.  Religious zealots and experts at manipulation.
-- Caprica 6 - The day she gains 5 pounds, everyone's going to treat her like Kirstie Alley.
-- Military Lingo - They must have a good advisor because their terms are accurate and properly used.
-- Thrace and Roslyn - I like the angels of destiny story-line.  Looking forward to more.
-- 5 more Cylons - I'll tune in for 5 more seaons just to see one revealed per year.
-- Find Earth - It'd be way too big a budget, but what a story that would be.  First contact, fighting together against Cylons, the Earth politics involved, the embrace of the BSG technology.  Cool stuff.

BSG Trivia - Boomer and Caprica 6 are both taller than Starbuck.  Hotdog is Adama's real-life son.  Tigh's dead wife was played by the daughter of Dean Wormer from Animal House.  Apollo has a thick British accent.  Baltar played one of the friends in Bridget Jones' Diary. 

Wow, as always, fantastic replies.  I really appreciate it.  In my searching around, I seem to find more for V4 on my first pass than for V3 and earlier.   However, I like pjz's write-up, so I'll probably buy V3 for now and probably get V4 later.  

It's funny, after having owned Poser for a few years, I'm finally mastering some of the basics and really starting to spend more time with it.   I guess as the saying goes:  In the history of all things that work, there was a time when they didn't.

Hi, all, I checked out a few of those tutorial links including PhilC and Poserfashion.  Thing is, all of those tutorials are written for Poser 5 and a few for Poser 6.  None for Poser 7.  As a rookie, anything I should be worried about if it was designed for an older version?

My main goal is to be proficient at converting conforming clothing to dynamic. 

Wow, these are terrific replies and just what I was hoping for with my original post.  I'm very proficient with most Windows based software and new applications are typically very intuitive and I find my way around easily.   For some reason, I'm just not quite mastering Poser.  I've gone through various tutorials and they definitely help.  I've purchased books like Practical Poser and others, but most books read like brochures that tell you what Poser can do instead how to do it.

My biggest hangup is that I am not satisfied with the look of conforming clothing.  I like to use dynamic, but then I find myself wanting to do complex clothify calculations that I can't always do properly.   I think the biggest frustration I have so far is calculating 30 frames or so with dynamic clothing.  Then, when I want my figure to do something that's next in a natural sequence of events, the clothing can't just pick up from that step because it's already been clothified.  So, I have to recalculate and clothify from the very beginning.

But, my general question was really about whether I should look at other applications.  Based on your replies, I'm going to continue to reference this forum and try out the tutorials.

Thanks again.  Further insights would be very, very welcome.

This just shows how much of a rookie I am.   I think I understand your reply, but not fully.  My novice view of the various software is that it can all produce excellent images, but Poser allows the highest level of detail and fine-tuning of human features, expressions, etc.  Is this correct?

Hi everyone,

I can't believe I actually know enough about something in Poser to chime in on a technical question, but I do want to point out one matter:   The one thing that the Poser handbook and other tutorials glossed over was the concept of the frames and animation.   It took a while before I realized that you have set up everything in Frame 1.  Do the parenting, zero the figure, get all the pieces set up for frame 1.   Then, go to Frame 30 and start setting things up for how you'd like the end state to look.  Pose the figures, morph some big muscles on them, etc.  Then, that's when you'll set the various Cloth Room calculations that you'll see in the tutorials.  Just remember, all the cloth collisions and draping don't occur unless they have 30 or so frames to "calculate" all those physics. 

Hope this helps.  Let me know if I've gotten any of this nifty advice wrong.

Tideskimmer

Xantor,

Thanks for the detailed reply and graphic.  I can see how the controls work, but I'm still having trouble lining up the photo to reflect in the figure.  Can I hit you with some specific questions?

1)  Should I always have a figure loaded already, and try to match my photo person to the figure?  Or, should I start with no figure? 

2)  I seem to be able to line up the front-facing photo somewhat.  But, I can't seem to line up the profile picture.  Even when I think I'm getting the dots close, the preview image is awfully distorted.

3)   Do I only move the dots and get them in the right place?  Sometimes, the red line doesn't seem to follow.

4)  Once I have the green dots where I want them, how do I then get the figure face to look like the photo?  Apply to Figure doesn't seem to do anything.

Thanks!

As always, thank you very much. I'm trying to master the basics!