Gee, Igrant's right... This thread is ancient! I'd forgotten about the topic. This Defocus thing sounds interesting. I may have to look it up. BTW, I still have Vue 3 but I think I saw that the newest version of Vue has import/export for Poser PZ3s. Anyone have the latest Vue D'Esprit?

VERY nice!

I gather by the pix that your original mesh is in 3ds format & converted to obj. It's possible that some things have gotten "lost in the translation". I've had this happen before in importing meshes. Is there any reason you can't import the original 3ds into Poser? It may handle the 3ds version better.

If you want something that implies finding a soulmate (regardless of the sexual orientation of the couple) here's a suggestion: How about something like the Two of Cups in the Waite deck (not necessarily holding the cups) but with both figures backlit so they appear in silhouette, their sex undiscernable. That way the viewer can simply read it as a loving couple, regardless of sexual affinity. I never thought of the card as being strictly heterosexual (whether that's because I'm a hetero male or because I was simply associating the card with an abstract concept I'm not sure) but I can see where some might find the card not pictorially representative of their lovelife. It might take some doing to get the figures "androgynous" enough, but if you dress them appropriately you might not be able to tell the boys from the girls :) (If you happen to have the Sheridan/Douglas deck, compare their Two of Cups, it's similar to my idea but the figures' sexes are obvious)

Silv: I wish someone with some modeling skills would create a dress jointed like the mermaid tail. That would be ideal. Nerd has a skirt on his site, but it's not full-length. A pants-leg also makes a good seated dress/robe if you make invis' all but one thigh & shin & do some warping & positioning. As for the Lovers card, I saw your two versions on your site. Both were original symbolisms (I prefer the swans over the odd-couple in front of the Tree of Life background, it looks a bit "noir" for a Lovers card [G]) The most common variants are the man between the two women often with a cupid overhead (supposedly symbolising love of ones family & ones mate or variants thereon) and the "Adam & Eve" scene with only one man, one woman and a third figure (this card is called "marriage" in some decks, e.g Eteilla tarot) What sort of symbolism were you shooting for on your Lovers card? Maybe I can suggest something. BTW: I have Trimax's scroll, the texmap is what I used for the Papess's book pages. Bloodsong: Didn't see the Byzantines on Rena's page (at least not under the new stuff) Do you recall what they were called exactly?

I didn't notice that before, but it probably is slightly askew. I realigned it a bit in Vue b/c it was intersecting with the bangs of her hair and (as you probably know) it's a royal pain to align ANYTHING in Vue when all you can see is a sketched wireframe while you're moving it! (the design is simply a texmap) I don't know if it's worth the trouble to fix unless someone can point me to a better seated-dress model, then I'll happily redo the whole thing. (I'll have to... as I mentioned, the PZ3 got eaten by a write error so I'd have to recreate the figure & re-pose it.) Then again, if you were wearing something like that on your head, it'd probably wind up a bit crooked from the inertia of turning your head. Maybe she just needs a hand mirror!

BTW, Bloodsong... what's the address to your site? I thought I had it in my bookmarks but can't find it. (I really MUST clean out my bookmarks every year or so!)

I just bought the Universal Waite cards today and lo and behold, one of the figures is falling backward! (Upon seeing this it occurred to me [duh!] what Bill meant! OK, I'm bright but I'm slow...[G]) All the trumps & courts are finished, but I want to go back & redo a few (redid the Papess today, one of my favorite cards, dress still looks a little off but better than it was.) Oddly enough, Bloodsong, I originally had the camera @ the bottom looking up @ a steep angle, but changed it. I probably should have left it alone. I'll definitely have to check on the fire technique. I think I'll rework some of the simpler ones 1st. This card is taking an inordinate amount of work to get just right!

The debris that falls from the tower varies deck-to-deck from sparks to coins to stones, I chose a combination of sparks & stones on mine. The bolt was done with a Photoshop filter, which doesn't produce very realistic lightning, but it's the only one I had. I do agree that the stones need improvement, I think I need to vary the size & shape more, they look too regular. Some cards have debris descending the length of the tower, which I think would interfere with the falling figures. I'll try breaking the rocks up a little and adding a few more. Tesign: by "backward" do you mean feet-first? Most decks show both figures head-first or one figure already hitting the ground. I don't want to vary from the traditional packs too much, as this is supposed to be a 3D rendition of a pattern set about 500 years ago. BTW, my figures are to scale with the tower, in contrast with the hand-drawn Marseilles cards which show them about half the size of the tower itself. I lost all detail in the figures' expressions, but they don't look like they're falling out of an outhouse!

Is this where chocolate lovers go when they die...? If we're REALLY REALLY good!?

I gave up on the fountain & decided to use the castle type Ace of Cups. If you don't have it, you should think about getting The Encyclopedia of Tarot by Stuart Kaplan (the president of U.S.Games Systems Inc.) It's a good reference work for comparisons of decks from the 1400s to present day. If you didn't already know, Arthur E. Waite swapped the numbers on Justice & Fortitude to correspond with the signs of Libra & Leo. His theory was that the two cards were somehow switched long ago and he was putting them in the "right" order. There's no historical basis for this, however... the cards "floated around" in the late 15th century before they settled into the present order, but Waite was the first to swap these two cards.

I'll play with it a little and see what I can come up with. If all else fails I'll fire up TrueSpace & build something from scratch. On the other hand, I've stuck with the Marseilles deck's symbolism pretty closely up till now (my Trumps & Court cards look mundanely dressed compared to Silverbranch's!) I'll probably use the castle-style cup anyway.

Bloodsong: I have the "splurt" thing too, but it doesn't look like it'll work. It more-or-less goes straight up (or out). I need a "mushrooming" effect. I may be able to cobble something together in the terrain editor. Silverbranch: Cool! My deck is based on traditional rather than esoteric tarot (Justice=8, Fortitude=11) and mostly follows the symbolism of the Tarot Marseilles deck. I've been using Stuart Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot as a guide. The fountain idea is an alternate symbol for Ace of Cups that I just liked (Marseilles deck shows a castle atop a cup... I still might use that.) I'll probably post mine when I'm sure they're ready... some of them are technically "finished" but I'd like to re-render them to get them looking better.

I remember bringing up the boolean difference thing before (it works with infinite planes too) and someone suggested going to the terrain editor and carving prints into the terrain with the "dig" tool. That's another way of doing it, but I found Arto's method simpler... P'Shop's a LOT easier to paint with than that terrain editor!

We're their biggest fans! You'd hope they would try to keep up with their fan club! [G] At least it's a bug we can find a way around!