I have heard of weight maps but never used them. is there a good tutorial on them you would recommend?

Thanks Boni, I hope to hear from you soon then. Oh by the way, I'm just focused on the neck right now and that is why the arms are different. I haven't done them yet.

Here is a little more information:

This is the image with my texture on it. I circle the problem area in red.

This is something I noticed to. It seems like the M4 figure has a bit of a problem right out of the box too.

Here are the material settings for both simple and advanced.

Here are some screen shots. You will notice the red under her hand. This is with one light.

also, before switching to P10, you can try faking GC with HSV expTM in render settings.  change lites to ray-traced.

I have the same render python. Could you tell me the difference between clicking Render (Time), and just Render?

 Wow, I never used IDL before! I just did some research into how to use it and then tried it out. It makes a HUGE difference!

Reduce the "Shadow" parameter on the light.

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

To be continued ... or not ... :o)

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P.S Here''s a link to the whole tutorial ---> http://www.drgeep.com/p4/l1/l1.htm .....<---  (copy & paste) Link function here not working, sorry .. :o(

Thanks, I did actually make those kind of changes and the shadow on the wall looks better, but the dark side of the figure casting the shadow is what I was trying to say is too dark. For some reason it doesn't change when reducing the shadow parameter.

Are you asking from a vendor perspective or an artists? 

Either one really. I was just curious how others organized their work. Maybe even pick up an idea or two.

 what you need for clothing is a modeller (can do certain types of hair too)

there is 100's of them  free all the way too need a mortgage ;-)

blender and wings are free but most of the expensive ones have a months trail USE it

find one that suits YOU 

I actually use wings3d. I have used blender but find wings to be more user friendly. I have made a few of my own props (swords, houses, and some simple clothing) I have heard of making hair in programs like wings and then using the cloth room to simulate hair movement in animations. Would this be something you would recommend? If so, is there some kind of tutorial or advice on how to make hair look natural using this method?

Hey guys, I actually found a really good tutorial about doing hair calculations and how to style. I was able to learn it very easily and now have my base figures setup to make hair quickly by adding hair groups to them.

I also wanted to give some advice to people on how to make their groups. I did a search on google for how to style hair and ended up finding an image used to train people who do it for a living. They divide the head into squares and work with them in order.

So I made my groups like that and I find that it is so much easier to style.

Here is the link to the tutorial on calculations. http://www.infiniteskills.com/training/learning-poser-10poser-pro-2014/hair-groups-and-styling.html

Quote -  It's something that takes lots of practice. Since you can't paint ON the model (PS7), you should use what's called a seam guide which shows where the texture on one part meets up with the texture on another part so that you can match them.

Thanks, I actually do have a seam guide. I see where to match the texture, I just wanted to know if there is a quick and easy way to match the textures. I guess I can do a pattern stamp and just rotate the cloned stamp to fit right?

Quote - try it with ray-tracing unchecked for the hair.  I know they hate this, but at least you could see if it will render.  transmapped hair tends to have burnt-in specular anyway.  one can only get caustics with dynamic hair in poser.

I think that may be it! I had a figure that had hair made in the hair room and raytrace was on. I tried to use him in another scene and it did the same thing. Once I deleted him from the scene there was no problem rendering!

Quote - There isn't enough information to assess what is causing the render crashes.  Hardware memory is one as mentioned; other causes could be composition of your scene.  

Are there multiple displacement maps used throughout the scene?

Are models/textures very high in resolution?

How many lights are being incorporated to illuminate the scene?

What are your render settings?

There are many variables to consider just to isolate the cause.

Sorry, I almost forgot this post. I still haven't had luck at fixing this issue.

Here are my specks:

Poser 8, Windows 7 home premium, 64bit, 2.74 gig usable ram, I haven't used displacement, just normal bump maps. I am using 4 g2 figures with hair made in the hair room. There are 5 lights and raytrace is on. I am using the auto settings for render at the best setting with lowest post filter size. Exposure is 1.60.

I am using the D3D perfect script to make the figures look more real.

I noticed it seems to crash while loading the first figures texture to render. But that is the first thing it says it is doing.

Quote - If you are using a template the textures must match at the seams (try the clone stamp and a lot of test rendering, or an even fill at the seams in your image editor). SnowSultan has seam guides for most of the popular Poser figures if that is what you are working with. Also, try rendering with texture filtering set to none...

I use old school photoshop 7. I like the idea of using fill at the seams. But I am a little unsure about how to blend it into the texture. Any tips? If there some kind of auto blend type thingy I can do?

Quote - There should be an Update shortcut on the desktop, if not go to |RuntimeLibraries!DAZ and double click the DzCreateExPFiles-V4.bat (or .command for a Mac) file. You then need to go to Pose library DAZ's Victoria 4>Morph Injections to add the morphs to the loaded figure (they don't load automatically in order to allow people to be selective when memory is tight - usually there will be a pose to load a complete set of morphs in the Morph Injections folder and a folder for the morph set within the folder to allow adding single morphs).

Yeah I have been trying to get that to work. She has morphs for her expressions but no body morphs. Would this install them? If so I wonder why it hasn't worked.