Quote - > Quote - The way I understand it Luxrender keeps working till you tell it to stop.

Correct.

Quote - You can’t make movies that way.

Sure you can. Look at the haltspp and halttime parameters in the film section.  You can stop a render after reaching a certain number of (average) samples per pixel, or you can stop after a specified amount of real time has elapsed.

Now, how you get an animation out of Poser and into Luxrender is something I'd like to know...

Thanks for your answer. I noticed there is no mention of animation in the “reality” plug in for Daz Studio. It doesn’t seem that difficult, when I think about it rendering out a movie is like batch rendering, when a program is finished one job it automatically moves on to the next.  A few lines of code and presto you have a movie rendering engine :). I"ll bet you guys will make it happen next year.
Steve

I use poser to make movies only. I render out to a series of ping files. The way I understand it Luxrender keeps working till you tell it to stop. You can’t make movies that way. Will there be settings to render a time line? My main interest in this render engine is that it supports network rendering and I can send my work to  http://www.corefarm.com and get it rendered in a hurry. The prices are within my production budget. I don’t know that there is any other way to export poser animation out to a render farm.

Steve

Quote -
But maybe "others " can show you real cool good looking image from within poser ..
 

I agree that artists who show examples of  what Face Shop can produce can hide the ugly parts from view in their compositions. After all you can only show one angle at a time in a still and 99% of Poser users make stills, and should be satisfied with the Face Shop results.  But if you want to produce a avatar that is as good as the one you started with (i.e. James, Vicky etc) so you can use them in movies you need to make a face you can photograph 360. To do that you need to do a lot of post work and I have tried repairing the Face Shop face map with Photoshop alone which is like digging a ditch with a spoon. UV mapper isn’t much better nor Photoshop Extended (the most expensive). The best is a 3D paint program like Blacksmith 3D, or ZBrush. I use Deep Paint 3D which produces the results I am looking easily and quickly. Here are a couple of links so you can see the results. The first link will show the work flow and the second is a brief movie which will  show the avatar from different angles. And no, Bar-code, face room is not just as good because you need two photos and for my work that’s not an option.  I only use Poser to make movies and Face Shop is the only program that will let me make a character from any decent, single photo.
http://www.stevedraun.org/grant/grant.htmhttp://www.stevedraun.org/grantscreen/grant_fs.htm
Steve

I just needed to be a little more patient. I received a reply and I found the tutorial. Dr. Geep and I are back on speaking terms. I love his tutorials.
Steve

Has anybody tried FaceGen? It looks like it is what  FaceShop is trying to be. Does anyone know if it’s possible to export a DAZ or Poser face and alter it using a photo and import it back into Poser again so he looks like John Wayne or Marylyn Monroe or me! And then would it have all the morphs in place just like it was before I exported it? I would pay $300 for that. Of course I wouldn’t expect perfection because I would still have to get the hair and the texture right but if it would be recognizable and animatable I would consider it money well spent. 
Steve

Quote - I  how do you add head and arm movements in Poser 7 after you have created a walk path?

Widow>Walk Designer  -------is the standard way. Post again if that doesn't work
Steve

Quote - Who is actually animating with Poser 7?  And better yet, who is getting great results from using animated layers?  I've experimented, but haven't got the hang of it yet.

So, if you've got something that's working for you, post it here if you please.

I am new to Poser, only been using it for 6 months and before that I was using Iclone for about a year and that is the extent of my 3D experience. Iclone was a piece of cake compare to Poser. Every thing seems 10 times harder but the superior output is worth it. I have found if I use a BVH file or any animation preset included with Poser that I can, for example, make an arm do something else in a second layer which will override the preset. The trouble is normally animate by hand and I almost never use BVH files, so I don’t have much use for the layer feature, but I am glad it’s there. Sometimes I make a trial animation in the second layer and then I can easily delete it if I am not satisfied. Obviously you can’t delete the base layer.
My only use for poser is animation (I have never made a still except as a test) and I haven’t found any likeminded Poser users. I think people interested in animation exclusively, use other software. 
Anyway below is a link to the last Poser movie I made. It’s only my second one and a remake of the first one, so you can see I haven’t had much experience. I am posting it here because I did use the layer feature (sometimes) and it seemed like an appropriate answer to hindsitestudios good question.  What ya think?
http://stevedraun.org/duke/duke_fs.htm

the best way to get Poser Stuff into Cinema 4D is a plugin called InterPoserPro

Chris

PS: maybe you come over to Cinema 4D Forum ... there are a lot if Infos about InterPoserPro too 

Thanks Chris, but my question wasn’t “how to” but, “is it worth it”. Cinema 4d is a big expenditure in time and money but if it renders movies much faster and animates pose/DAZ figures easier it’s worth it for me.. Can you animate an imported Poser figures in Mocca 3 with out re-rigging?
Steve

Quote - Hi,

Is there someone using poser to create flash content ? Have u got some examples ?

Thanks for your help.

Hi dougi
Here is a link to an example of a flash movie I made with poser. I am new at this so forgive the mistakes.

Click Here

Steve

Quote - It should do however a thread in the Content Paradise forum appears to indicate that this feature may require additional work by e-frontier.

Hi PhilC
You wrote: “It should do”
What should do?
Do you have a link to the thread at Content Paradise?
In order to see if this feature works you only have to click on the little key icon in the Properties Panel and wait for the pop up. if there isn’t one the feature worthless. I am asking if others have the same experience or if I am missing something.
Steve

I play around with  Iclone a lot and I found a way to import Kate into Iclone for a little screen test about a year ago. You can see it here: http://stevedraun.org/kik2test/kim_fs.htm
At the beginning you will see a notice to turn your sound on, don’t pay any attention there isn’t any sound. You will see that she looks very cartoonish because of the low poly counts in Iclone. I agee with you that it’s difficult to tell her age I actually have her in a business suit. If you look carefully you will see he breathing.

 Steve

Quote - I dunno how to fake GI in early poser versions, other than the fake GI infinite light sets like the "render upgrade" set shown in the attached image, or use a bright image with IBL and no AO, to avoid the dark areas that most folks actually wanna see in renders. for GI, I would just use carrara instead. it's very easy in that, and most other modeller apps. if HDRI works in P7, then try that, as that technique should be far more realistic than ordinary IBL.

Thanks Miss Nancy  I finally found what I was looking for! The suggestion to use IBL did the trick. The IBL lights give over all even lighting to the entire scene or figure. For example when using the IBL “sun right” light if the light is placed directly in the center and reduced to 20 % strength before rendering I get great results and it only requires one light!! Then I can add  spot lights and they will produce SOFT shadows for high lights and dramatic effects.
Now I am not trying fruitlessly to get rid of shadows which everyone that responded to this thread knows is very difficult, I am adding shadows if I want to, which is much easier.
Steve

Quote - unfortunately, proper use of light and shadow in poser requires alotta experience and expertise, which needs several chapters of a manual to properly explain. see the poser gallery here for hundreds of thousands of examples of bad lighting and shadows. depending on poser version, read up on image-based lighting or global illumination (GI) in yer various manuals (I don't have iclone, but GI is covered in carrara). read all the recent threads here with keyword "lighting". we useta fake GI in older versions of poser by having a set of about 30 dim universal (infinite) lights, and there may be some of those sets in freestuff here. the disadvantage is that poser can become somewhat slow and unstable with that many lights.

Hi Miss Nancy,
Your words are not wasted on me. I have experimented by placing 4 white spot lights front, back, and left and right about mid body and then changed them to infinite lights. This lights up James (head and shoulders) pretty good. But when I switched to Jessie I got ugly shadows on the shoulders. So I install lights above the head point them down and on the ground and point them up and make them infinite and tweak and tweak but…
I am not interested in stills just movies interested in making movies. I am waiting for Poser 7 which may make animation movies a little more interesting and by using mostly 2D backgrounds and only one or two characters I should be able to keep rendering times down to 1 or 2 minutes a frame. Unless I use 30 lights! Is there some other way to achieve Global Illumination without 30 lights? You said you could fake it with 30 lights what’s the real way? How can I make a movie using 30 lights? If I give up perfection is there a more practical way. Perhaps a set of lights for sale that produces Global Illumination with only a few strategically place lights? 
Steve

Quote - Hi Steve,

I think it is phenomenal that you are a new person to Poser and can animate like that....  Have you any experience with other animation programs...  thats was excellent.

Thanks so much for your compliment! As I said in my last post my only experience in animating is with Iclone which I used since it came out a year ago this month. There is a link to a movie I made with it in that previous post. Iclone is easy to use and lots of fun. In a few months I taught myself to animate and then I took to poser right away. I never feel frustrated animating like I do with lighting. It’s easy to learn the few animation tools and then it’s patience and imagination. The trouble is I can’t imagine how to light my characters and I am running out of patience. The light sets that come with poser 6 are worthless if even lighting is your goal. I just bought the first computer related book I ever owned “Poser 6 Revealed” and as far as light is concerned I am no better off then before I owned it. I am not trying to do anything fancy, I just want even lighting and any help is appreciated. 
Steve

Quote - the flash movie looks pretty good to me. a few glitches, but nothing you don't know about already. the shadows under the chin to which you refer are not shadows, but actually areas that aren't receiving any illumination. there are many ways to do what you want, and the lighting experts will be able to tell you more. one way is to use several lights from all angles, to make certain every body part is lit up. GI may also work, but if there's ambient occlusion, you'll get those dark areas.

Miss Nancy,
Thanks so much for your input. Are there any lighting sets I can purchase that will make these body shadows (what else do I call them?) disappear so the entire figure is evenly lit? Or is there some sort of formula, a diagram of were to position lights to get the desired effect? You mention positiong lights at different angles, what kind of lights? I was hoping I was asking a question with a simple solution which would not necessarily require an expert. I have seen so many renders with body shadows that were so subtle they may as well have been non existent.  Please remember I am new to this. What is GI? I have  zeroed out ambient occlusion with no effect. Any more help would be greatly apprecated. My only back ground in 3d figure animation is Iclone, which is much easier. Here is an Iclone movie I made.
http://stevedraun.org/sword/sword_fs.htm