As you've noticed by now, the site is obviously back up, just in case no one knew :)

I'm still wishing I could get the time here to finish up on a few more things, and I still promise I will, soon enough.

................md :)

LOL, yeah, sorry `bout the size, I really do try to keep them down.
But for this particular tutorial, there really just wasn't no real way to shorten it anymore then I already had done, cuz it was a lot bigger, but I cut out a few scenes in the thing to try and shorten it a little, so it's at it's barest minimum right now.
And I really wanted those other scenes in there too, cuz I shoed a few other things to look for, but figured I had enough of the most important details in it in the shortened version, so I went with that.

I have had I think one other person request a "lite" version too, but I realized I really couldn't make one, not and still keep the same sort of info that is in this tutorial that is LOL

Hope you can get the tutorial downloaded though, maybe start it when you go to bed and by morning you'll wake up with the thing all nice and finished? :)

I lived on dialup for sooo many years though, that I know your pain LOL
I had to get cabel for a few jobs though, and once that happened I couldn't go back to dialup, even though I was too poor to afford the cable LOL
So, now I keep it and am a VERY happy camper and screw the cost LOL

Anyway, I hope you can down it and all and also, enjoy!

......................md :)

He's also sometimes hard to get ahold of and I don't think he's around during the wekends, at least I've never gotten a reply from him until after a weekend.

Is there something though, in particular that maybe I could be helping you with in the mean time?

I'll do my best to help out all I can.

I haven't had a chance to get back to finishing up with my tips and tricks and all for this thing, because of other projects I am currently involved with, but I haven't fogotten and still plan to do all that soon enough :)

.............md :)

Hey, you're right!

I'll have to email him and find out what the flip?

It could be a number of things, as the site was hosting by the college and all that.

I would have no problem hosting everything if he doesn't mind, so I'll see what he wants to do?
I have 4gigs of space and 800gigs of bandwidth to use.

Hopefully, I'll hear back from him though, so we'll see?

I'll let you all know what I find out, which ever the outcome will be.

OK, .....................md :)

Yes, it's a stand alone program.

This is a good thing, as that way it can be used for many, many people, more then just for Poser people.
You can use it in Lightwave 3D, C4D, Max, Vue and so on.

A tip for those who use Vue too, or other instancing programs:
Make a few various "small" ivy objects and use those in your instancing software.

This will cut down greatly on memory issues, as the Ivy objects can eat up huge amounts of memory easily.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the tutorial :)
And have fun with Thomas' awesome program!

And Tim has a tutorial posted at the Ivy Gen site as well.

........md :)
BTW, I keep wanting to let you know how much I love your little quote thingy there, it's toooo funny, the catnip thing LOL

Hmm, did you try it again?
cuz i just went and made sure things are all ok and checked my FTP and all things are still good for downloading :)

I'm in the middle of installing all my software at the moment, as I had to get a new hard 
drive installed, but the files aren't on my system anyway, they are on the server and are all good.

But, my point being, I'll try and help you any way I can, if you still can't download things, but they should be working fine.

The only thing I can think of is maybe you tried at a bad time when they might of been doing some maintinance or something?

Let me know how it goes, ok?
Always feel free to email me if you need to.

....................md :)

No probs :)

Happy to be of help.

Let me know if you still run into any problems either viewing it or just have questions?
I'm in a good mood for helping people today, I have time, so I'll be around most of the day :)

......................md :)

first thanx, and second, just to make things clear, "I" didn't actually make the great program, Thomas Luft did, I just donated for him a tutorial to help him and the public out :)

And yes, I haven't at all forgotten about this thread nor it's content, as I am working to get together the Finals I am planning to add to, in addition to the tutorial, extra info to further explain some odd details taht I couldn't get into the tutorial as well as things that I've since found and figured out after creating that tutorial.

And I am also in contact with Tim Ellis, the donater of the Leaf Textures.
We (and anyone else who wants to donate high quality Textures) are going to be putting our efforts together to help consolidate things and make them easier for people to get more in one place.
I personally have plenty of web space and bandwidth for storage, so no probs for me there :)

Just wanted to let everyone know of these new things.

As for the video part of your question, please check out the DivX.com web site.
Here's the link, to help speed things up for you:
http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/

And the Mac version too:
http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/

And I really hope this works, cuz I have Windows Vista Ultimate on my system and recently updated my DivX and found out that it now no longer will let me compile anymore tutorials!
Nooooo! LOL
I sure hope they will get a fix out soon!?
I can't make anymore tutorial for the net until I get a new woking version that I can use of DivX Pro.

Well, I hope this helps you out?

And I "will" be back here soon :)
Been keeping my eye out on the forums to track down any issues people are running into.
So, please, anyone out there using other programs besides just Poser, let me know what things you personally ran into so I can add those tips or tricks or work arounds in my Finals update.
Same goes with any Poser people too, of course :)

Thanx again and enjoy!
And always feel free to e me with any and all questions or suggestions.
md@md-arts.com

.................................................md :)

Yeah, it seems that ages ago I read some things similar to that as well?
Can't remember where it was that I read that at, or I'd post the link here?

But I know that I read something like that somewhere on the net once in my life LOL

Would be curious though to see the results of the two types side by side in the same renderings.

BTW, Tim Ellis (the guy who donated the leaf textures) just added a new tutorial to the Ivy Gen site.
It's focus is on Ivy Gen and Blender, but can be used for other apps as well.
I just checked it out and it's a nice basic tutorial that has great screen shots with it too!

.......................md :)

Hey!, thats pretty cool looking!
I love to see how normal things like this Ivy thing can be used in weird ways like you just used it :)
That was really neat too!

Like a cooler version of an Edward Sizzor Hands or something lOL

And you are very welcome too!
I'm glad to see that little tutorial helping some people out :)

.............md :)

This is the original person who posted the freebies for all of us, his name is, Tim Ellis.

ivy_generator_Textures.zip (7,006 KB)
set of textures including normal maps etc., kindly provided by Tim Ellis 

You can download all the textures right there from the Ivy Gen site.
It's down a ways from the first links to the app that you find there on the site.

I'm really looking forward to finding some other types of Ivy leafs or 
for that matter, what about other types of just vines of various types?

I've actually thought of some fun things people "might?" want to try out?
If someone knows how to make some items such as a bunch of grapes, small sizes 
and larger sizes and less ripe colors and fully ripened versions and things like little blue
flowers and whitish yellow flowers, you could make things like grape vines in vinyards 
and honey suckle vines that love to grow on wire fences and things like that and 
just manually stick those in ater after you have the vines all made.
Since you wouldn't need a ton in your vines, this would be a completely possible thing to do :)

I know that "I" plan on doing this sort of thing.

And again, on a note I made earlier, pleassseeee remember to adjust that first slider 
up a little  and try to make your vines a little less crounded  as this will save you by 
several megs on the file sizes and of course, on the render times as well.

This is very important to NOT ever forget about while creating your cool looking vines :)

NOTE: Please post here and/or let me know if anyone creates any new versions of leafs or 
any other items that can be used with them, as I will put them all into one folder for download.

I've already talked with Thomas on posting these sorts of things, like the tutorial 
and anything else that might be relevant and I of course always let him know 
any new plans I might have before posting just to keep him in the loop.
I know he is a very busy guy and this Ivy program was really just a project 
and never really intended for him to spend much public time on it, 
or at least thats the impression I've gotten from him so far.

Oh,, and I think that maybe the textures that come with the Textures Folder, might be able 
to be changed somewhat to make smaller the file sizes of those, as I noticed they were all 
set pretty high on the quality end of things and I don't think they really need that much quality 
for little leafs that mostly aren't going to be seen that close to notice if they are less quality 
or not, from a 24bit compared to maybe a 16 bit or something, know what I mean?
I'm just saying, it might be fun just to see? if they can be changed for lessing file sizes.

.........................md :)

Heh, heh LOL
Yeah, I never had to render anything in Poser either, other then just messin around to see 
what something looked like before I exported the thing out to use in Vue or what ever else.

But I was sort of drawn into the whole deal, really I didn't have much choice in the matter.
People in the Poser forum were ruinning into some issues, things I hadn't thought about cuz 
I wasn't aware of some of the problems that you can have with Poser and exporting and some
other things and I sort of felt like I had no choice but to "prove" taht this could be done and done
with out the use of any other 3D program, since for a lot of people, Poser is all they have, so I
"had to" work through all of it and that included making a real scene, 
which I knew absolutely nothing about either LOL
As you can see though, after over 6 hours of learning, some (a lot) trial and error and a ton
more reading, (well, some reading) I managed to get an actual scene made and put out! LOL

I have to say, I was pleasantly supprised too that it turned out as good as it did?
I really didn't see or even look at Poser as anything other then just a 
posing program which is all I bought it for in the first place.

Now, I can go back to the Vue scene that I was supposed to finish that goes along with that tutorial.
Cuz I already have most of that built, I just needed to work out the problems with that Ivy Gen
program and Vue and other issues of things sometimes coming out backwards or insideout 
or mirrored or on a different axis then what you see while working in the Ivy Gen program 
and finally figured out most of the problems and the deal with all of those issues, 
so I will be adding though tips into the final addendum.
Most of which are that Ivy Gen sometimes exports things wrong, plain and simple LOL
But, there are a few other things that can help somewhat, but even with those, 
a lot of the answers are hit and miss types of answers, but what can you do? :)

I'm mostly taking the rest of today off though, and that'll give me some away from the 
puter time to gather up my thoughts again and get back to this stuff in the next 
few days, if and when I actually have a few seconds of spare time LOL

Thanx too and I really hope you enjoy my tutorial and of course to you and anyone else, 
feel free to critique or comment, make suggestions or request, I'm open to anything? :)

.....................md :)

The little mouse is saying:
Welcome to my place, my home, my pallace... my secret garden.
Come and enjoy!

Poser 6
Greek Ruins
House Mouse
And of course, Ivy Generator

You can post any comments in the Gallery section, here:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1434292

Thanx...........md :)

Yeah!, there ya go!
Do what EnglishBob just suggested.
There are of course lots of free methods out there to do these things with, 
but this one might probably be the easiest, just like he suggested.

Here's the link to the UV-Mapper site too, to help you along even faster :)

http://uvmapper.com/

Enjoy!
And thanx for that extra tip there, the more the better for everyone.
I suggested the method above just to show that it all "could" be done from just Poser.
But yes, there are lots of the freebies out there as well that help make life a little easier for us.

And yes, these kinds of things I can use for the final tips and all when I go to make the addendum.

Thanx for that!

You're all also welcome too for the comments......................md :)

Say, if any of you here work with any Poser stuff and also want to follow whats going 
on with that subject, since I soon found out there are completely new and different 
issues pertaining to Poser and Ivy Gen, you can check that out here:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2695940&page=1

I go into some other sollutions on some problems people had in that area.
And you can see my very first ever Poser scene I've ever made there too LOL
All just to show that Ivy Gen can and does work with Poser LOL

Hope that also helps out a bit? :)

..................md :)