This post is not intended for advanced modelers, but I thought that it might be useful for newer users just starting to create their own props for Poser.

I modeled these cylinders in LightWave, exported the mesh in OBJ format and stuck them into Poser to render. I only used a 20 segment cylinder for a quick and easy example. I was very careful to make sure that there were no polygons with more that 4 points.

Cylinder A shows the object imported straight into Poser and rendered. Due to the default smoothing angle of 100 degrees, the cylinder turns into a marshmallow. This is great if you are modeling organic stuff like... ummmm... marshmallows.

Cylinder B is an exploded view of the same object that illustrates which group of polygons (faces) should remain welded together, and which ones should be split apart in order to create a sharp edge. (Hey, I didn't know that Poser rendered double sides... learn something new every day. Cool.)

Cylinder C is the same cylinder with all the polygons pushed back together. The number of polygons (faces) is still exactly the same. The only difference is that the number of points along the sharp edges has been doubled. The default smoothing angle is forced to stop where the mesh is no longer continuous, and allows for a nice crisp angle.

This is not too bad considering that the render engine calculates based on the number of polygons, and not points (I think). A smaller mesh with optimized geometry frees up a bit of resource that allows for more complex scenes. For secondary props this is ideal, and allows focus to be on other primary elements, like your character.

Hope this helps clarify some basic stuff regarding split vertices and sharp edges. Back to modeling! :o)

Cheers! - M

Mind Over Matter
"If you don't mind, then it don't matter."

Here's another quick tip for newer users... optimizing your **"n-gons"** (polygons with more that four points) for Poser. In my limited experience, I've found that while Poser can render n-gons, it doesn't always do this properly. The only way to really be sure that your meshes come out pretty much the way you originally intend them to be, is to respect that Poser prefers **"quads"** (4-point polygons) and **"tris"** (3-point polygons). You can always take the easy way out and leave it to your conversion software to make sure that all your polygons get turned into quads. But, as a modeler there is a challenge to strive to make your mesh as efficient as possible. Above is a quick example of a disk with 24-points, and how you might best deal with converting this single polygon to something Poser will like. Just sharing a bit of modeling trivia. Hope this helps one way or another. :o) cheers! - M

Mind Over Matter
"If you don't mind, then it don't matter."

Very cool thanks moe !

:O moe i love you man..will you have my babies? lmao....yeah anyway...i never knew how poser would deal with chopped up groups! i always bandsawed the hell out of my edges!...sheeeeet! :D reverend judas

lol....sweet even...lmao

Thanks for the tips!I thought you had to add extra geometry aong the edges. Any chance of a wireframe of that third cylinder? I'm a little confused, have you split it into sections and rotated or added extra points. Either way if it's all one object doesn't that produce n-gons? Or is it six seperate objects grouped? Baz

Here's the wireframe of all three cylinders as requested, Baz. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by *"grouped"*... there's always a bit of confusion when it comes to modeling terms since the syntax varies from application to application. I am guessing that by grouped you mean that the polygons (faces) share points, or are all welded together. If this is what you mean, then yes... I have six "groups" of polygons... and I have pushed them together so that the respective points of their edges share coordinates (co-existing in the same space), but are not merged or welded. No, as you can see in the wireframes... there are no n-gons here. All the polygons are either tri's or quad's. Hope that clears things up more. :o) Cheers! - M

Mind Over Matter
"If you don't mind, then it don't matter."

Thanks Moe, I understand now! I use Wings and since it only produces solids this technique could be difficult with some models. Might be possible to do something with the extract command and hole material. I'll have to experiment! Cheers Baz

Actually the credit for all these little tips should go to chemicalbrother. If he didn't point me in the right direction I'd still be making marshmallows. LOL! - M

Mind Over Matter
"If you don't mind, then it don't matter."

chem rox!..hehe...wish he'd finish the green goblin..hehe..anyway...just curious...is that a bullet?...it looks like it from the colors you've picked and all...or is it just for this little example? rev

Marshmallow is my bloody word : ) who taught you this stuff anyways moe : ) ehehehehehehehe

basically the last cylinder is 6 seperate entities ... imagine you had a plastic model kit and all the pices fit together to make one continuous object........ BUT you don't glue it............. so esentially its just loads of little objects sitting on top of each other.....but saved as one object.......

seems pretty easy doesn't it but you try doing it to this : )....... then you better get out the patience herbs...... (they don't call me chemical for nothing you know)

if you notice on the 1st wireframe also that the actual wires look identical to the 3rd one..... the problem is in the phong shading value of 100 degrees (everything below 100% gets smoothed , which pretty much includes every man made object EVER) so you have to split it up into lots of little seperate bits to keep the lines crisp..... if yawl moan at me enough i'll do an indepth tutorial on it......... (at the moment i'm too drunk tho)

Moan... moan... moan... (was that enough to get you to write an indepth tutorial for the renderosity tutorial section?) heheheheheh - M

Mind Over Matter
"If you don't mind, then it don't matter."

Heh heh, I know exactly what you mean chem, this is a Poser version of one of Moes models before you showed him the light, Moe does like to add a bit of detail to his stuff lol, patience herbs by the bucketful

and this one wasn't much better lol, more buckets of herbs. And now I've noticed a couple of mistakes in the textures too, ah well. Only joking Moe, it does take a bit of patience, but it's worth the effort in the end to get a nice sharp model in Poser

Thanks for the input, billy! Truthfully, you and Franky were the first people who told me about splitting vertices. I couldn't figure it out back then, chem just patiently took it apart for me. I promise not to give you too much of a hard time with all future models. LOL! :o) Cheers! - M

Mind Over Matter
"If you don't mind, then it don't matter."