Quote - Hi synthymonkey.

Do you have any pics of the mesh? I would really like to see it. I love teyons mesh work. :)  I dont have Miki 3 yet, no money, but am getting it next week. Meanwhile, I would love to see the mesh.

I need to work some up. Smith asked me as well just today - they must've read your post :-) It's a new mesh so seeing it would be good. I'm rendering this weekend but should be able to fit in some time for anti-aliased screen caps.

> Quote - WTF is the purpose of the .xmp files? Any explanation for this?

In the Poser library's extended details panel is where you see all the metadata in that XMP file. The folks at Smith have a python script and a tool built by netherworks that will automatically create that file - just plug in the info. I got to play around with it - really simple to use. I think they were going to give away, but not sure.

Quote - Syntheymonkey, what a wonderful project. I love it when people put Poser to meaningful use.

Thanks! It's been really cool to work with them on the project - they've built the most advanced sports helmet testing lab in the US, and are working everything from lacrosse, US football and hockey to cycling helmets.

My secret sauce? Figuring out the scaling factors and knowing how to render and modify Ryan and Alyson's heads with the morphs and faceroom. Now I just keep adding to the client's runtime as they add new products.

Ultimately - the research and development they are doing is to try and save lives. I like helping out.

That's it. I'm done. Dinner time.

The bar was raised over @ RDNA with a couple of V4 masters showing some great examples of how she poses. But it looks like the advantage may come from some add-on hip morphs. I was impressed. And further inspired to polish up this pose below.

I reposed, added in a little bit of Miki 3's voluptuous and body builder morphs and then cheated some. I used a few minutes of Poser's morph brush to soften the hip crease and came up with this one.

Learning from other artists' work is a great way to grow. I am pleased to have seen some strong talent @ RDNA and happy to have thrown an image or two into the mix. Miki 3 might not be for everyone, but I'm really pleased with how she looks.

Going from their scanned anthropomorphically accurate head to Poser figures was really easy - I imported their exported OBJ, worked out the scaling factors and then modified both Ryan and Alyson with the included head sculpting morphs and the face room to match their reference heads. I then built a set of scenes with Ryan and Alyson in a variety of backgrounds.

Now all I need to do is get an exported helmet model OBj, import and scale it with the pre-defined scaling factors, then place it on the character, and render out 6 camera shots with IDL.

They get a series of images they can use for previewing color, design, and then assess whether they move forward or not with the project. Did the same thing for their glasses line. It's an awesome project that I'm very proud of - and it uses nothing but box stock Poser figures and some background scenes (Stonemason's stuff works great)

From the clients' perspective, they wanted an average looking person. And the P8 figures were perfectly functional and they actually thought they were a little "too pretty" :-)

Looking forward to seeing any additional posing morphs or improvements to the deformer rig that get spun out on Miki 3 - that would be pretty amazing. Seems like it would be decent product; at least I'd buy one. :-)

Quote - Again, it doesn't really matter that Miki 3 bends better at the waist.  If you're doing any kind of render where your figure is wearing clothes, that has minimal effect on what you're doing.

 

Elbows and knees however have a huge effect because they're uncovered far more often.  In all of the renders on the other forum, V4's elbows and knees look 1000 times better than Miki 3.0.  Miki 3.0 gets some pretty bad distortion at even relatively light elbow and knee bends on both the inside and outside of the joints.  V4 doesn't and therefore pretty much makes Miki 3.0 not worth buying.

I really think you should jump into the challenge and show me. I saw a few odd elbow artifacts in those V4 renders. some creasing inside polygons, and an odd bottom of the bicep tuck for example. V4 does have a nice point to the elbow. When I render counter poses of Miki 3, I'll have to try and see how that elbow compares, because honestly - I don't know V4.

But a 1000 times is better? Could that be just the teeniest little bit of an exaggeration? Words are so easily twisted. As are Poser figures. It won't take long for you to make your case with an actual image.  :-) 

PS:

Sorry if I sound like I'm goading you a little - it's just that brash words are very sticky in a forum, and have always rubbed me the wrong way.

One of the really smart content developers at RDNA (esha maybe) pointed out that it's different strokes for different folks. I think she's right. I truly dig the stuff you're creating with V4 and the other Daz figures. I've got a different figure that I'm really digging, and getting some really nice images out of her. And I just started playing around. Looks like some other folks are digging her too. Do we have lower standards? Are we just plain blind or wrong? Or is there maybe just a little bit of middle ground in this Poserverse where there could co-exist a few other decent figures?

Attached Link: http://poser.smithmicro.com/logos.html

We've got an honest to goodness pose-off challenge going on in RDNA (the thread linked to earlier in this thread). Miki 3 versus V4. I'm not going to ruin it for anyone interested, but it should be fun. Words are nice, but we're artists that make images, let's really "see" how they pose side by side. :-)

Quote - What I have in my gallery doesn't really represent most of what I do with Poser.   Also what I have in my gallery doesn't change the fact that Miki 3.0 has almost all of the same bending problems Miki 1 and 2 had.  It's a slight improvement, but a slight improvement isn't worth buying and it is inferior in how it bends to V4.

 

I predict that in six months you won't be seeing many new products for Miki 3.0, if any at all.  Same story you've seen with Miki 1 and 2 given that the figure isn't a significant improvement and doesn't really address what I think were Miki 1+2's biggest flaws.

Can you send me an image that you've created that would help put her to the test? I'm sincere in wanting to take that challenge on. And not to make you wrong, just to see for myself.

I've been away from Poser for a long time, and got back into 3D renderings through a convoluted path. I tried using the Daz figures and couldn't get them to work right. I always seemed to be missing some important add-on pack, or got the install wrong, or only had the low-end textures. Honestly, it was confusing.

But it was a lot easier ramping up using the Miki figure. Everything I wanted was there. I wanted to figure it out quickly and was able to. Plus I really like that she didn't have the signature "victoria look"

Viva la difference.

We may not agree on which figure does what thing right - but I really do have a hunch that with the right mix of full body morphs and good posing that I could get that Miki 3 rig to do what you need it to or most of it. :)

Quote - > Quote - Hmm, thought..., if one was to re-rig Miki to match/work with p7 would we be able to give the bone pz3 away or what have you?

 

Why bother, what you're talking about is called Miki 2.0.

 

I am not convinced about Miki 3.0's joints.  They really don't seem to work properly.  They're an improvement over Miki 2, but not nearly as good as V4.  Miki 3.0 seems to bend in certain places better than V4, like the hips, but having less natural extremity joints is far more of a liability because they are far less frequently hidden by clothing.  I'll be returning my Miki 3.0...

I take that as a challenge. :-)

Can you point me towards an image in your gallery that shows your most aggressive knee bends, that doesn't require a big prop like a motorcycle, and I'll try and replicate it with Miki 3? I'll just do a simple nude in IDL, no other scene items, just to see if we can get her to pose for you.

I got a copy of that from one of the folks at Smith for the Miki renderings. I can send him an email.

Quote - I created some nude studies when I was doing the clothed promotional renders for Smith. They can't post the nudes on their website but I was able to put a bunch of them up in a thread on RuntimeDNA. Above is the link to that thread.

One of the funny things that hit me last weekend - I was checking out a thread on the Daz forum about their new V5 figure ideas, and someone posted an image from a 3D character artist that showed a pose they'd love to see a Poser figure acheive. I took that as a little bit of a challenge.

I wasn't able to recreate the pose 100% but got very close. It's the first image in the thread on RDNA in the link.

Two other details - none of the images posted in the RDNA thread have any photoshop to Miki 3 or her joints. Photoshop was used only to crop, add credits or fade in background.

She is also rendered in the default state, with none of the full body morphs applied. For my personal tastes, I like Miki 3's voluptuous dial set at .2 to add a little more weight on her arms and torso, and I dial in the body builder morph to about .15 to add a little more definition. 

Quote - In all honesty, Miki 3 looks less oriental than Miki 1 & 2.

The illustrations, at the link, point out that the joints don't seem to be very much improved. The jumping image shows jutting knees and elbows with other images showing overexaggerated creases on the inner elbow. The fingers look unnatural in the patio image. The smile looks unnatural and awful.

More skilled artists should be able to produce better demo images, without retouching, than are shown on SM's official site.

Some of the facial expressions look good, but overall, the promotional images are unimpressive. Whatever advancements have been made with Miki 3 aren't on display.

Ouch. I thought I'd done a decent job. 

I agree the patio image looks a little forced. I was having a rendering issue on that image with my camera interpenetrating a foreground stone column. It hung forever trying to render the inside of the column. It took me a while to figure out what was happening in the scene, and I ran short of time. But looking at the photobooth images, you can see that she is very expressive.

I went to your gallery to check out some sample images for good hand poses to reference - it's hard to pose all those joints...

Thanks for the feedback - I miss art school for the portfolio reviews. They were brutal sometimes, but useful.