Yep, I'd have to call any enhancement in control for pushing points around pretty much imaginary. The Cintiq does have the advantage of letting you put your face close to your work, but moving your damn monitor or finally getting a decent pair of glasses would also accomplish that. The tablet is a little twitchier for navigating interfaces, but I'm probably just not used to it anymore. I think I wouldn't lose any sleep if I had to use a tablet. And would certainly rank a 3D mouse higher on my sculpting tool wish list.

Correction: The weight of a 24hd when taken off it's stand (props to Wacom customer support for suggesting you do that thing) is closer to 30 pounds. Which means that two adults and a toddler can get the job of taking it to UPS done. The toddler is there to add spice, danger, and challenge on a busy street for the idiot adults as well as take ALL the cards out of the display racks while the so-called adults are conducting their business. Logistics, pffft.

maxxxmodelz,

For sculpting I'm not sure the benefits of a Cintiq vs. tablet are all that enormous, certainly not on the order of the improvement for drawing. Probably control is marginally better, but I haven't used a tablet in a long time. I can give it a whirl and get back to you. As a mac user, the Cintiq gives me RMB and MMB conveniently, but the same is true for a tablet (and I think Wacom still sells a 3-button mouse that works with a tablet). It depends on how you work, but developing reference drawings is a big deal for me and I find the Cintiq superior for that. Although paper, pencil, a cheap scanner, and a tablet could be a competitive solution. And goodness knows I was perfectly happy with just a tablet for years and years.

If drawing wasn't my main concern, I don't think I could justify the price. But since it is, I did pony up in the late spring to have the power supply fixed on my 6 year-old Cintiq (which, in the US, means shipping an 80 pound thingie to Vancouver WA--since only Wacom repairs Wacom-- and parting with 400 some odd dollars). Glad I did, but I definitely thought about it.

Anyway, I'll see what the tablet feels like for sculpting and report back sometime today.

I wouldn't argue with any of that. Especially since my signature even with pen and paper looks increasingly psychotic. I only note that for me the change from mouse to tablet to Cintiq has been increasing happiness, but also that each needed changes in technique. In drawing/painting that's not a bad thing, getting a kick in the pants to try new ways of doing things. For sculpting I'm finding short little strokes with a stylus to wrestle a curve into place works best for me.

MDO2010 posted at 2:42PM Thu, 01 September 2016 - #4278613

I really want to learn to use the tablet since everyone says you need one, but I cannot find a comfortable place to put it on my desk, cannot comfortably draw even a smooth line with it - I can't even get the settings to the point where I can smoothly sign my name with it. If I can't write with it or sketch with it I certainly can't paint with it.

You're probably expecting too much from the tablet. Pretty sure nobody can do a precise line or make a signature with a tablet. (That's one reason people pony-up for a Cintiq and why some drawing programs have hand-steadiness compensation.) You can however change your technique to get closer with less effort than with a mouse. Adapt to the tool: it's not going to adapt to you. As a pup I'd see someone good at inking with a rapidograph pen and think it was the easiest thing in the world to do. Right up to the point I tried to do it.

As for finding a comfortable position, if you have a small tablet, have you tried your lap?

mdbruffy posted at 6:11PM Thu, 18 August 2016 - #4280240

bwldrd posted at 4:13PM Wed, 17 August 2016 - #4280233

This one is for daz studio & genesis 2, but may be able to export the bag to poser.

<https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/g2-sportsdress/75935 >

I've checked this one. It's Daz-only, There are no DYSON import files for Poser.

If you have, or can get, a DAZ Studio installed, just export the bag as an FBX or a Wavefront Obj. If you choose Obj, use the Poser scale preset in the Studio export dialog. If you want the morph (FBX will only bake the morph as far as I can tell), set the morph to 1 in Studio and export the bag as an Obj. In Poser do Menu > Object > Load Morph Target ... for the closed bag you previously imported. The only problem I can see is that the resulting morph in Poser translates the object in space, but otherwise works as expected. The resulting morphing bag can be saved in the Poser prop library.

But speaking of translation, there's a problem on my machine with the texture reference for the logo (wants a Danish umlauted A when the file name has a German umlauted U instead). You'll figure it out if you have the same problem, although Studio will ask you to find the file twice. Probably similar to thinking foreigners will understand you if you speak loudly enough.

All software should have a good manual. Most programmers make terrible manual writers.

You've Nailed that !!!

There's a very old saying among very old computer programmers:  The purpose of writing a computer program is to write a good user's manual.  Programmers baffled by that zen koan make terrible computer programmers.

Not that it helps, but here's nice photo reference for a Mitchell in a blimp:

http://www.mitchellcamera.com/photogalleries.html

You'll also be wanting to add a camera boom (crane, jib) to your list.  Never seen a self-referencing Hollywood movie without one on the set.  You made me realize I've never seen The Day of the Locust (Burgess Meridith and Nathaneal West fan that I am), which I've now saved to my Netflix q.  Thanx.

I was looking for a photo of Hitchcock riding on a boom.  This isn't it,  and it's late Hitch, but you can see some detail on the camera mounting.

http://notes.communique.co/weekend-tip-16-17-3/

The question is--in the photo I remember- why he was riding the boom.  He was noted for never looking through the camera, having storyboarded his movies to a fare-thee-well.

Quote - Just FYI... the equipment you have posted is from the SILENT era. Sound cameras were much more bulky, being basically enclosed in a sound-proof case.

(Sorry, my background from teaching cinema history is showing!)

You don't think the camera shown could pass for a Mitchell NC 35mm  (apparently the standard studio camera for the period) or--viewed side-on-- a Technicolor?  A Mitchell BNC (an NC in a "blimp" casing to dampen the camera noise) would be slightly more bulky, but would likely be what would have been on most sound stages.  Sadly, the only thing I don't know is where to find a 3D model of that.

Clearly there's a weird rule about line splits in .pz3 and .cr2 files, though. You can split map parameters but not all parameters. Example, loads: ... { material hair ... doesn't load: ... { material hair ... doesn't load: ... { material hair ... It may be ( as I think your suggesting) that you can split a parameter if the new line begins with a numeric. I've never seen that documented, but then I haven't seen a lot of documentation on this format. Anyway, if all you care about is scene and character files that may turn out to be the answer short of having to know keywords.

I think with the assumption that keywords ( parameter names) are reserved (and this may not be a valid assumption) that you can get by knowing just the names of keywords that can have file paths as one of their values. I think you do need to know all the keywords to parse the format in the general case if newlines are not significant. The thought comes from having looked at this a long time ago and seeming to remember you can't always tell the difference between parameter names and parameter values if parameters values can split across lines. Looking at this again and deriving a grammar has been on my agenda for a while. Should get to it in a few weeks. I can let you know if I figure it out. If you figure it out before me, please spare me the pain and publish the result. Thanks, by the way, for getting me to challenge my assumption that newlines were always significant, which is what I previously concluded. They're not--because you can load props and MAT files free-format (although I doubt that anyone writes them that way) and map parameters surely do split across lines in several examples I've just looked at. Good luck with the project.

FWIW, I've never seen it specified, but newlines appear to be both significant and not significant. When loading a .pz3 or .cr2 file, they are. If you delete a newline, the file won't load correctly. This is a silent failure on the Mac, but (I believe) you get a 'unrecognized file format' on the PC (with P4). A .pz2 or .pp2, however, loads fine free-format. The conservative assumption for parsing is (unfortunately) that newlines aren't significant. You might try one forum down (Poser Technical) and search for 'file format' This might be a useful link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1087383 If you discover better specifications than mentioned in that thread and the P5 manual Bushi cites, do please report back.

c1rcle,

Guessing again, but is it a PATH problem? Have you tried changing $PATH and $PYTHONPATH so they're appropriate for what you're trying to use. If that's the problem, you could write a script to set the paths for whichever you want to use at the moment. I think they can't both be on the $PATH and both be happy is what I'm trying to say. HTH (MCH)

OK, now I'm curious about focus control and disappearing windows in Poser Python and the idea that grabs might be the solution to something. What are the problems you're seeing?

I don't have ProPack (I'm waiting for P5 on OS X and hoping I'm not to be looking up admiringly at the flocks of pigs flying south over the skating rink in Hell when it arrives), so I apologize in advance if what I have to say is irrelevant to the real problem.

Do scripts launch windows that disappear behind the Poser window (which takes the whole display, naturally) once they lose focus? Do they have focus on launch?

If that's the case, I have a clue about why it happens, which I'll spare you. However, you might try these possible solutions:

For focus on launch of window w, use w.focus_force() in your script.

To keep the window on top, bind its FocusOut event, and in the handler raise the window to the top. Here's the short version. (Square for angle brackets):

w.bind( [FocusOut] , lambda e: w.lift())

Is this anywhere close to relevant?

There was an open question in the macintosh forum about whether ProPack could render animations with QT6, which is included in 10.2. I know it can with poser 4.0.3, but a ProPack animator might want to step up to the podium and say yes or no.

From what I can tell from that forum ProPack and QT6 and Mac OS 9.0.3 don't work together. Not clear (to me anyway) what the story is with 9.2.2 or OS X classic.

Attached Link: http://www.python.org/topics/tkinter/doc.html

Also thanks for reporting the version in P5. But is it 2.2 or 2.2.1?