Im new here (this is my first post but ive been hovering around the sight for a year now) and i just got poser 5 today (christmas). Its sweet, interface is great and i was pumpin out images in no time. However, i was under the impression (due to the immense population of v3 in the marketplace) that v3, freak, m3, s3 etc were curious labs included models, not DAZ studio models that cost 39.99 a piece. So i ask you, why does anybody need these? are they more realistic? Is there any aspect of them i cant duplicate on my own with morphs and such off of judy? every picture i have seen of v3 looks far superior to judy, but isnt this just from the lack of awesome textures on judy? With some work, could i emulate these looks so i dont have to spend the same amound of money poser 5 costed? I appreciate your responses, feel free to set me straight as i really dont know. It appears the faces on v3 are better, better lips, better face morphs- how do i do this with judy? just continue reading the manual as i mess around with the program (im on page 100, but now im skipping around)? Any words of advice would be greatly appreciated as im going out of town and cant experiment with my program. Side note: i have already made several morphs for judy that look amazing- DAZ quality minus the texxtures (still havent figured out the bump mapping process- invert, grayscale, somethin or other). Am i missing something here?

Sounds like you're off to a good start. I recommend that you check out Eternal Judy by 3Dream in the Marketplace here. She is a "smoother' version of Judy, can wear most of Judy's clothes(mainly dynamic), and if I recall correctly, mapped to accept DAZ's V2 textures. Look at my gallery here for "Daybreak", -I rendered that scene in DAZ|Studio. The scene is somewhat dark, but you can get a good idea of EJ. Another HIGHLY RECOMMENDED purchase would by Face_off's Real Skin Shader. You can make a plain texture really pop. Also, I suggest DANAE's Radience Pro light set. You will not be disappointed - look at my newest gallery pics. I hope this helps. -The Starkdog

Attached Link: http://www.poserfreebies.com

I'm not very knowledgable about the Poser 5 characters; when I first got Poser 5 I tried working with them a little but got frustrated and gave up. As for Daz3D, these characters are remarkably well constructed and are very high-resolution. There's more to them than just nice textures-- but it helps that the best textures in the business are specifically tailored to the Daz3D models. Be forwarned that Daz3d models require a lot of memory, and that Poser runs much more slowly when using these models. Poser 5 is not entirely compatable with them, either (Poser 4 was more compatable, but it appears that Curious Labs prefers for its software to fight with the Daz3d models rather than support them.) The poster above mentioned DAZStudio. This is an alternative to using Poser5 for working with Daz3D models. It's freeware that unfortunately is still under development-- the last time I tried it, it was Crash City. But I have a Macintosh; you might have better luck running the PC version of it.

V3 and M3 at daz are high poly models that are considered the best storebought figures for realism (and other things). This is personal but, once I bought them, I never used a P5 figure again. Some great things have been done with Judy (mentioned) and there is a huge void to be filled for her market. Could be fun for you if you are leaning that way. It will not save you money, though. Not if you count your time. The experience of a few hundred renders will tell you your future...

I don't have Poser 5, but from what I understand, the DAZ characters were modeled from 3D scans of actual live human models, while Curious Labs modeled Judy, et al, by hand. That makes a huge difference in the quality. What I've seen of Judy, she's pathetically cartoony compared to Vicki. Her face looks flat and lifeless, while Vicki has a lot more dimension. Same with Michael vs. Don, etc. In my opinion, there's no comparison. And the price of the DAZ characters is really quite reasonable compared to some other companies that make human figures costing thousands for one figure. And DAZ often has sales. Watch for the DAZ originals sales that often give up to 35% off on all DAZ original items, which Vicki and Mike are. There are also lower resolution DAZ figures that are good. If you're not doing extreme closeups, they look just like the higher res figures, and they cost less. Oh, and by the way, I don't work for DAZ. LOL

Melanie

Message edited on: 12/26/2004 10:46

There are other worthy models as well that you may wish to look at such as Neftis' Elle at polymage.com. She doesn't have the support a lot of the other figures do, but she's a great product. Also you may want to check out the WIP images of Seraphina's model which isn't coming out soon, but from the looks of it will blow everything else out of the water.

Something to mainly consider when purchasing a character is add on support.. check around at Daz, Rendo, Poser Pros and RDNA to see if there are accessories, clothes, morphs packages n such for the character you are interested in BEFORE buying. I couldn't tell you how many characters are out there and SOUND really interesting, bu tthen you find out that if you want to clothe them, you'll need to create almost everything you want from scratch, or convert existing items over for the new character... and that is a LOT of work. While the enhancements for Judy SOUND nice, there is VERY little or no support for the character at all, so you end up left out in the cold. A GREAT freebie character is Little Dragons. Furette2 (in the free stuff here), and the most popular characters off the top of my head are (there are others, but these are the most popular, and in no particular order) Realistic: Victoria 2,3 Mike 2,3 Stephanie 2, steph petite Daz kids or teens, or baby Toon/stylized Daz The Girl Koshini 1,2 Krystal<--- not available again till Jan, over at RDNA Daz Freak Aiko 2,3 Animegirl (Rosity?) Neftoon Gal<-- VERY nice, but also VERY limited support. Other "fun" characters: Daz Millenium Dragon<-- just a GOOD character! Daz Wacky World characters<---fun, but of specific interest Daz Toonimal Cat Assorted Monsters/creatures: Ya just HAVE to check out Sixus.. period! Plus they also host some great freebies, and have outstanding prices. My Personal "most used" favorites are Daz's The Girl (GREAT expression morphs!), Daz's Pixie and The Heavies 1,2,3 (I did addons for all of those), Neftoon Gal, (I really wish she had more support though!) Millenium Dragon, Daz's Sea Dragon, Sixus's Gryphon, Daz's The Freak, Koshini, and Krystal. Bottom line really though, is check to see how many things you can find you like before buying a new character, because that will make them more versitile...

When I first got started in Poser, I couldn't afford to buy anything. So I fumbled about with Posette and Dork (Poser 4 native characters.) Unfortunately, they had many limitations. The Poser 4 figures got broken joints when I tried applying even the gentlest poses, and they just don't look "real." I couldn't wait to buy Mike and Vicky. The problems iwth the Poser 5 "native" characters such as Don and Judy is that Curious Labs never followed through to make them "complete." We didn't even get all the morphs they were supposed to have, if memory serves. Don and Judy have minimal "supporting stuff," such as clothes and hair, from any of the merchants. In contrast, as you've seen, you can go to the Renderosity Marketplace or DAZ3D, and find all sorts of stuff for Michael, Michael 3, Vicky, Vicky 3, the Freak, etc.

I admire some folks like Sixus for creating their own stuff. But I need to see the long term: where are the clothes and hair for them? How much variety or choice will there be in the offerings? I prefer to have "mainstream characters" and a wealth of choices. That means the DAZ characters.

You can make the best of your money by doing some research. Hang out at the stores, and see when there is a sale. It seems every week DAZ has a different reason for a sale. They currently have a Birthday sale for Vicky 3. The Vicky 3 anniversary bundle would get you off to a great start for $69.97. Renderosity has some stuff on sale also.

You could consider joining the DAZ Platinum club and get some great stuff for $1.99. Or join Poserworld and get all the stuff they made for one subscription fee.

Message edited on: 12/26/2004 11:33

If you get computer magazines where you live, keep an eye out for free versions of different models. Michael2, Victoria2 and low res versions of Vic3 have appeared on magazine cds in recent months. Freak too, if I remember rightly. Daz is looking to expand its customer base and you can expect to see more freebies as Daz|Studio gets closer to being finished. Welcome to the addiction. You realise you're trapped now, don't you. Muwahahaha!

and once in a while, Daz itself will have freebies (Finally got the Gorilla..;). Just search on Poser and Characters here, and you can find a few..by all means, Poser Freebies (sixus1)..Mayadoll (free..and quite a wardrobe and hair available as well..all for free), there's just so much stuff out there.
If you've got the scratch, the Vickies and Mikes are a safe bet..

Attached Link: Return of the Green Skull

Consider the basic P4s and P5s as blank slates you can build on: almost all the realistic renders at my website are the P4 guy, and I'll put him up against Michael any day. But it means experimenting with morphs (both alone and in combination) and textures. Still, hang with it, and you'll find some amazing work ahead.

Do you 'Need' them? Most likely No.

Do you 'Want' them? Most likely Yes. ;)

The biggest difference is that the DAZ figures are made to be more realistic, and far more morphable. The higher polygon counts mean slower working, but more versatility.

As to compatability, the DAZ figures are just as compatable as anyone else's. Most of Poser 5's incompatability issues are in relation to Textures, since the P4 system was effectively abandoned and left unsupported in 5.. CL could have saved a LOT of face if they had simply added P4 materials downward compatability.

If you do decide to get some of the DAZ figures, I can make a suggestion. :D

Don't buy them first. Get the 3D Starter Content, which comes with V3 RR, and M3 RR(reduced res figures) and 10 other figures and a some misc props and textures.
This is $30.

Then get the V3 Upgrade (which is the full V3 but requires V1/V2 or V3 RR which you now have)
This is $30
+This gets you a $10 voucher.

Then get the M3 Upgrade (which is the full M3 but requires M1/M2 or M3 RR which you now have)
This is $20 with the $10 voucher above.

So normally V3 and M3 would cost $80.
But with this method, that same $80 gets you...
V3
V3 RR
M3
M3 RR
Millennium Dragon LE
Millennium Dog LE
Millennium Cat LE
Cartoon Kids.. and several other figures, some clothing, textures, and props.

Effectively getting the figures for less than $10 each and some other toys in the process.

The $10 voucher with a V3 Purchase is only good for a while though, so if you're planning on buying next year, this won't apply.

I love the DAZ figures myself, but could be biased because I have them all (except V1) blush.
But then I love Sixus' figures too...
and Neftie's...
and ... well you get the idea. ;) Posering is a powerful addiction.

Message edited on: 12/26/2004 14:03

Sigh.
After years of hesitation and tired of wrestling with freeware stuff I decided to take the leap forward and purchase Poser 5. I justified my over budget spending by the conviction that that V3 etc. were included and that'that would be it', as far as money investment was concerned.
Now you guys are telling me I may have to spend another $80 or so to get properly posable and detailed characters.

Good that USD is peaking low to EURO at the moment.

I am pretty new, but I can't resist flinging a pitch in this thread.

All of you touting the Daz figures are certainly campaigning for a "concept", but not actually srrduude's concept! He/she wants to create characters without spending a lot of money. You people are leading srrdude down the path to Daz where (how exciting) there are oodles and oodles of follow-on supporting products SO HE CAN SPEND A LOT OF MONEY. Not just the 39.99 per core figure, but HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS on all the other stuff you are so exited to point out as available.

There's nothing wrong with your approach per se. But it is not the approach asked for in this thread.

Here is the correct response for someone who wants to run with 3D in Poser and not spend a lot of money.

An artist makes his own tools.

In the 3D world, even just in Poser, that can go very deep. You can learn to create models from the ground up using Wings3D (free) bring them into Poser and bone them in the setup room. You are now in control of the morphs, the look, everything, concerning the model.

You can learn (as you indicated in your opening post) to make textures from scratch. You can get free or cheap photo reference sets to do so. Or, get a friend to pose nude for your camera. (An artist makes his tools and lots of time it's fun!)

While I have not personally made use of the Hair Room, there are possibilities there, and you can get free hair that can be made to fit your model. You can learn to make textures for that hair in a 2D graphics program. Or, purchase one incredibly flexible hair model and learn to exploit the heck out of it. I paid $7.95 for one model that gives me all the hair power I need.

Next...the Cloth Room....PhilC's tools for making clothes....learning to take free (or VERY inexpensive) conforming clothes and make them dynamic. Modeling clothes in Wings and bringing them in to Poser, make them dynamic. There are other tools such as the Tailor which might be part of the arsenal. An artist makes clothes for his purpose.

Same for props. Make a small budget to buy some, or learn to model them an import them.

I could go on.... read books on building Characters in Poser, review Dr. Geep's tutorials and all the tutorials. Dig and dig.

Now, to be fair, I would put myself "half on" that track. I purchase a few things here and there. But I am learning the tools on my own advice. I am deep in the cloth room now.

I start with Judy, the Poser5female (free) and she is the root of all my human characters, male and female.
Here is my core purchase:

Eternal Judy by 3Dream 12.25
Nikki texture and morphs by posermatic 11.90
P+J Two of Hearts to get male texture. 12.95
Egypt Hair by 3Dream 7.95
Real Skin Shader by face_off 12.00

From that I am deriving incredible diversity by opening the textures in my graphics program and altering them, creating many many completely different looking hair styles from this highly morphable hair, and spinning the face dials to come up with unique looking faces. You are taking the Poser5Female and with these few add-ons giving yourself power.

That's my two cents.

See a group portrait of a just the first few characters resulting. Note: Srrdude did not indicate his/her intent with regard to style and purpose. Please bear in mind that in the images below I am specifically going for ordinary life, not glam or fantasy. I am shooting for characters that you might meet walking down the street and interact with normally. [Some images below did not receive the benefit of real skin shader yet. Some hair below by Kozoboro (free)]

::::: Opera :::::

Regarding Daz3d incompatability with Poser 5-- These are issues that can be dealt with in various ways, but they are annoying and perplexing for the newbie. For instance, Daz3d morphs must be placed in a special directory in the P5 runtime, which you have to do yourself. Not a biggie, but if you don't know that, suddenly none of your morphs work! And after you save a model and re-use it from Figures or from a scene file, all the morphs for the model are on the parameter list, even if they weren't loaded. Once again, there's a fix-- Dialcleaner. But if you don't ask around you won't know about it. As for textures, all the mat poses I have that load textures seem to work fine in Poser 5. The only problem is when you try to bring up figures saved in Poser 4 with materials, a lot of them are not found by Poser 5. So you use the Mat pose again, or re-do the texture associations by hand. The one thing that's great about Poser 5 is the library structure, that really allows you to break things down into folders. I've been organizing my pose folders so that all the figure poses are in one folder, all the V3 Morph poses are in another, etc.

OperaGuy-- Your point is well taken, especially for someone who is budget-minded. I agree with your slogan that an artist makes their own tools. But an artist must also seek out the best tools that are available. The best work is produced by a combination of the two-- the willingness to spend what it takes to get the best tools, and the willingness and ability to improvise and create that which you can't buy (or can't afford.)

Oh, and for those who think 'realism' is not to
be found in the (free) Poser5 characters
(with a few inexpensive add-ons),
here is a closeup for you.

Poser5Female (judy)
EJ by 3Dream
Male morphs and expressions spun up by operaguy
Texture by Jepe (P+J Two of Hearts)
Hair by 3Dream (Egypt Hair)
Material room node script by face_off (Natural Skin Shader)

Hi-res images only, un-compressed TIFF images.
I suggest you right-click and download
and open in a graphics program
or if you click, will open in new window but be
patient! It will eventually be revealed if you
have Quicktime installed.

Large, 1440x810 300dpi 4.5MB here.
Medium, 720x405 72dpi 1.1MB here.

::::: Opera :::::

Making tools, predominently, is not just for the budget-minded. It's not like, well Daz to the max for spendie people but other people have to settle for buying a few things and making tools and some day we'll be able to afford... Nope. An artist making tools is the high road. And yes, saving up for that unusual tool that is beyond one's capacity, like the face_off shader ($12.00). Becoming dependant (a few in this thread have admitted it is an addiction)on pre-made files(not actually tools) supplied by others...is that really a satisfying experience? Especially....if you have even the slightest desire to make a career in 3D. You will have to know how to get into the guts, how to model and transform elements. I guess that makes four cents. ::::: Opera :::::

Here we disagree, I'm afraid. Artistically speaking, the high road is making the best possible artwork. For personal development, the priorities may be different, but from an artistic standpoint, the means are irrelevant, the results everything. From a career standpoint, the best strategy is to save up for a high-end app like 3D max (i.e., the best tool), and in the meantime, mastering the intricacies of Poser 5 is excellent training.

"... while Curious Labs modeled Judy, et al, by hand." - Melanie

No. Don and Judy et al are the P4 woman and P4 male [and P4 kids etc] recut, rejointed, and remapped by the 3rd party companies and creators that CuriousLabs farmed the work out to. Posette [the P4 woman] and Dork [the P4 Male] were designed and modeled by Zygote, which is now Daz3D, and origionally lisenced to CuriousLabs for Poser 3/4. Don and Judy are Posette and Dork, and the work on them was not done by Daz due to problems with CL and Daz during the Poser 5 creation process. CL "modeled by hand" no figures or other content during the creation of Poser 5, or during any other Poser version. Their content has always been made by 3rd party developers. [At least prior to s-Frontier's acquisition of CL: we'll see what they do from here on out.]

If I may, two things I felt needed clarification: (1)"I don't think the Don / Judy characters have all their morphs", there are fully morph loaded Don and Judy.pz3 files on the Poser 5 installation CD. I was very surprised to find them, although I'll probably never use them and (2) the DAZ characters ARE heavy on system resources if (one) keeps all of the unused morphs loaded. Using Morph Manager (http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=2056272), I have shrunken an M3 character from 30MB to a very managable 5MB. BTW, I've had no problems using the DAZ characters with Poser 5. Importing these files into Lightwave or Vue has been a different story altogether......

Arrrggghhh!!! Don't you just hate it when you write a nice long explanation about something and when you hit Post, it goes nowhere?! Shoot, now I have to try to remember what I wrote.

Ironbear, I worded it wrong before. What I meant was that the Millennium figures were scanned from live human models, while Posette/Dork, etc. were not, which is why the Millennium figures are so much more realistic, in fact the head was scanned from Dan Farr's own face. What I meant by modeled by hand was that they were created in a modeling program, not scanned from live human models. There had been a photo of the male model who posed for the body of Michael, over at DAZ at one time, when there was a history of how Michael was made. I did already know that Zygote made the original Posette and Dork. I believe RDNA had some hand in Judy/Don, etc., which is probably why they support it so heavily.

I've been using Poser since the mid to late 1990's, coming in on Poser 2, so I've seen the leaps and bounds of improvements to the figures since then. The P2 figures didn't even have lifelike faces at all. You had to paint faces on them in a paint program to make them look like anything. Poser 3 was a major improvement! Michael and Victoria were started at Zygote, then continued when DAZ spun off from there.

I hope I got in all I had tried to say before my post vanished into cybervoid. LOL

Melanie

Message edited on: 12/26/2004 19:34

Something else to consider.. learning to make your own stuff takes a LOT of time.. and then there are always some tools you will end up buying to assist you, and save time, but at the end of the day, a lot comes down to what you actually want to do with poser. If you hve a scene you want to render, in many cases, you can use V2,or 3 Michael2,or 3, and some of the clothin gor prop items out ther, and do the scene in a night. Modeling the clothes, and props, conforming/smart propping them, doing uv mapping, and then doing the textures, you might spend a few months working on that same scene! A lot comes down to what is YOUR TIME worth to you? I KNOW I don't have 2 months to spend developeing items for a single render. And the reason I'm not found of characters like eternal judy, Her n such, is there is a HUGE difference in the number of things out there for them. HUGE. like 5000:20 huge. Will they save you money, yep! Will they then eat up all your free time trying to make things for them? Yep. The biggest attraction to Poser: NOT having to build every single thing you want in a render by yourself. Freebies help. clubs like the platinum club help, but it is JUST like a DVD player, or a VCR.. you have the base program now.. you can make your own content, or enhance your use of what you have by buying media. I COULD author every dvd I own.. I COULD make videotapes of every show I want to own... but I buy them because I don't have the time or expertice to do them, and and because in the long run, buying things saves me time and my time IS worth quite a bit to me.

People come at it from different perspectives. I'm a graphic novelist. I'm not interested in becoming a master of 3D modeling. What interests me is showing how realistic 3D artwork can be used to create an interesting comics story. So, within reason, I want to get the best models that are out there and use them to create. And since a graphic novel consists of hundreds of images and a wide spectrum of scenes and events, I want to be able to produce a finished graphic fast, fast, fast. In my current project I'm trying to produce about 15 finished images per week. That doesn't leave a lot of time for development. Even using Daz3d models, I'm constantly frustrated by how long development takes, and how many limitations I run into. This weekend I spent hours developing a character with David, only to find that David doesn't have the clothes I need for the character, so I redid the entire character with Michael. The whole process cost me an entire day! Anyway, we all have different priorities, and it's important to keep that in mind.

I'm a DAZ Mod so obviously I'm biased, but I think that if you're starting off, getting the 3D Starter Kit with the V3 Reduced Res and M3 Reduced Res included is a very good deal. Although I thought that Don was much better than the P4 guy, the only thing I liked about Judy was that she could take V2 textures. I've never liked Judy, especially around the eyes. The current products for Judy make her look better, but I still don't like her as much as V3, even the Reduced Res V3. And between Don and either M3 or David, Don loses every time.

Making your own characters is great, but I don't see much difference between using the P5 fem and using V3 when it comes to "using your own tools." If you want to make custom characters, you can do that with both. The only difference is (IMO) you get more that you can do with V3 out of the box before needing to create your own magnets.

Hope this helps,

Cres

I wanted to answer your question with "hell no!" The problem with victoria 3 apart from the huge file size is that everyone seems to have this figure and render it ad nauseaum. Judy`s face can be improved greatly using the face room.

try the 3d starter pack as told before, it is not very expensive, it contains a lot of props and characters. I think that M3RR and V3RR, which are included, are excellent, even for close-ups !(we used V1/2 and M1/2 for close-ups before...). So DAZ has a very rich display of possibilities(i still uses M1/2 and V1/2 !!! even if M3/M3RR V3/V3RR are more realistic). You have only to limit your needs ! The last point is that basic characters (P4 and P5 i guess) aren't so "human-like" and much more limitated as far as posing, versatility and expressions are concerned. anyway, I think you will find what you want and, "unfortunately" for your other hobbies, the will to expand it ! Have fun PS V3 rendered ad nauseam ? A so much versatile one ? maybe but DAZ models still have a long life range ! Oh oh oh, i forgot ! try SIXUS alien queen !!!

Yes, I agree. P5 Judy face can be improved greatly using the face room but its not possible to improve the terrible UV MAP EJ has a perfect UV MAP and any texture of V1 or V2 fit perfectly in her. You will not see any seams problems. I think that EJ UV MAP is the best in EJ product and that she can be converted in a male figure.

Daz has the poser world so dazed they are inventing urban legends, like 'versatile." Either the legions rendering Vickie, especially naked Vickie, are really inept at making her look distinctive, or what is more to the point...she is NOT versatile...because all Vickie renders look the same, with that nose and cheekbone structure, plus the really WRONG shoulder jointing that carries over into her clones. I could pick her out of a lineup. Ad nauseam. ::::: Opera :::::

melanie; When you hit send and get bounced to the title page for the forums, try hitting the back button on your browser first. Your text -should- still be there, and just hit send again. Happens all the time...

It is wrong to compare Judy with V3! V3 is a high resolution figure though Judy is much lower... The posibbilities of a Figures are based on the mesh resolution. Till now only Dina and Steph Petite can be compared to V3 However V3RR is the gold solution for low resourses plus you can use everything made for original V3! As for the tools of an artist? It depends on the money you want/can to spend! I mostly use freebies and I cover most of my needs,there are many excelent free textures out there and basic clothes! If you dont have time converting textures for one figure to another buy Universal Texture Converter,excelent tool! As for clothes,P5 cloth room can be a great tool too.. If you don have time first search if what you want exists for free and if not buy it...If you don't have money make it! pitklad

Excuse me....but "An artist makes his own tools" is as ridiculous as saying "A photographer makes his own camera." An artist makes use of whatever tools are available. A sculptor needn't quarry his own marble. You hardly ever see a jeweler out panning for gold. When was the last time you ran across a painter plucking hairs from a horses tail in order to make their own brushes? ...please... -end rant-

srrdude; Welcome to your new addiction! The DAZ models aren't 'neccesary' per se. But DAZ has snatched a lot of the market, simply by having the marketing power to get their message out, and providing a steady stream of new content. And there is a lot of content out there that you either have to have one of the DAZ models to use, or be ready to spend a lot of time in Morph Manager and Tailor to try and fit it to the models you -do- use. Don't worry about the 'incompatibilities' of DAZ and P5; there really aren't any. What basically happened is that DAZ decided not to support the new P5 shader system; only the old P4 texture system. So unless a brokered artist threw in a one click MAT file that was made specifically for P5, all you got was P4 level texture application....and since bump map support was altered (they stopped using .bum files, which are more pseudo displacement maps, and started using proper .jpg grayscales). The P5 figures are more like blank slates; you also have to factor in the fact that P5 had a =very= rocky launch, and to this day there is still a great deal of animus. Personally, I do animation and love the extra articulation in Judy. As for the bumpmaps; what channel are you connecting them to? There are several that can accept a grayscale and seem to work...but not quite.

"The posibbilities of a Figures are based on the mesh resolution" always love that mistake no. resolution has nothing to do with it. it's in the artist. you realise, that Jarjar Binks, Gollum etc have a lower polycount than V3? remember the mantra! Each Vertice Costs 1 Cycle Of Run Time. so... the more vertices, the more runtime, the longer to animate. makes you think don't it?

I dunno.. as a morpher, I find low resolutions really limit what can be done with a figure.. especially when it comes to the head. That said, one of the biggest reasons to start using a character, is the morph sets that are avaialble.. make sure to check those out as well. Capsces does some excellent morphs, and any character you get that has her morph sets available will be very diverse. I do morph sets as well, but have a different 'style" of morphing then she does, so in some cases, they really compliment each other.

"The posibbilities of a Figures are based on the mesh resolution"goes to how much you can change a mesh with morphs so that your character looks more unique/realistic and since Judy is lower resolution has less posibilities then V3 ... I find med resolution figures like M2,V2,Judy,Don ok for most of my needs,even for close ups... We all loved our V2 and find her soooo much better then posette for close ups but when V3 came out then "ok,V2 is good as a background figure..." I hope V4 would not be just a higher resolution mesh then V3 but something better! Everyones needs depends on what eveyone makes,an animator needs different things then a hobbist or a profesionall from a Figure... pitklad

What Looniper said. You don't have to buy the DAZ figures, but you'll probably want to. There's a reason why almost everyone uses them. Kind of the reason almost everyone uses Windows. It may not be the best, but it's pretty good. And the fact that everyone else uses it makes life a lot easier. If you want to become a 3D modeller, maybe you'll enjoy learning to make your own figures, morphs, clothes, textures, etc. But if you want to make art, you'll want to buy a figure with a lot of support. So you don't have to make all the clothes, poses, textures, etc., yourself.

That said, you don't have to buy the DAZ figures right away. You can stick with Posette and Judy for awhile. Maybe wait for a good sale. Judy takes V1/2 textures, and there are some very high quality textures for V1/2 out there. There aren't that many clothes for Judy, but if you use dynamic clothing, it's not too hard to fit V3's clothing to Judy.

Another thing to keep in mind: the Face Room only works for the P5 people. You won't be able to use V3 in it.

Excuse me....but "An artist makes his own tools" is as ridiculous as saying "A photographer makes his own camera." Excuse me, but no it's not. Making textures isn't that difficult. Making morphs isn't that difficult. It's possible to get an extraordinary range from seemingly limited characters with even just a little effort. I'd hardly call that "ridiculous". >> Either the legions rendering Vickie, especially naked Vickie, are really inept at making her look distinctive, or what is more to the point...she is NOT versatile...because all Vickie renders look the same They look the same because very few people are willing to think outside the box when it comes to that character mesh. Yes, the mesh itself is quite nice, if a little poly rich for my taste, but look at the "morphs" available: some slight eyebrow raising here, some gentle nose work there -- as if no one wants to really go in and work with the mesh to see what's possible. Same thing, frankly, with the textures, which usually amount to some different makeup application and nothing really groundbreaking. This is what leads to the Barbie look of everything in the galleries: no one wants to really see what the mesh can do because they're happy enough -- and, I'll add, sometimes too lazy to do anything more. It's instant art, so you dont have to really spend time on it.

You can make V3 look quite different, but most people don't want to. And not, IMO, because they are lazy. All the naked Vicky renders tend to look alike for the same reason the fashion models on the pages of Glamour tend to look alike. We have a certain cultural ideal of beauty, and our images of fantasy women will not stray far from it. Vicky always looks the same because we want her to look that way. The limit is not in the mesh or the morphs, it's in ourselves.

An artist makes his own tools is nonsense, artists havent made there own tools for hundreds of years anyway. I am sure there are a lot of people who don`t sit down to render something and start making textures and morphs for their characters. Fashion models look similar to each other but victoria 3 renders look very much alike not just similar looking.

I must disagree with the 'artists' comment. Not everyone in here is an artist. Me, I'm a hobbyist who's having fun with a piece of software, and buying things to have even more fun. For every Michaelangelo, there are thousands who just like having fun with art. I don't have the time, skills, or software to make my own textures, so I buy them. I'd hazard a guess that the majority of folks reading this thread are the same. If you can make your own textures (or figures or props), bully for you and good on ya. But please don't expect everyone to be in the same position.

Operaguy, it is ineptitude, because with the various morphs available for V3, you can use her to duplicate nearly any other figure out there, including the males. The problem is that many don't bother to do any morphing at all, they just pose, add a sword, drop her in a temple, and hit render. (I'm so glad NVIATWAS are on the decline again!) Then there is also the "assembly hobyist" factor. Those who make these scenes simply to see what they can build with a given set of tools. (pick 10 random items sometime and see what you can do, it can be interesting) As to creating props and figures.. I, at last count, had over 600 DAZ products, and I didn't even bother counting the Rendo' products or any freebies. So yes, I will call it an addiction. But I still create my own figures, props and textures when the need arises (or when I get into that modeling mindset that overtakes me now and then). It is just as has been mentioned... An artist will use whatever tools it takes to get the results they desire. Easier tools simply mean they can finish and move on to the next project sooner. Personally, I find modeling, morphing, and texturing to be just as much an artistic endevour as scene creation. Then again, unless you do some renders, a 32 hour stretch modeling in Lightwave expresses very little to anyone but yourself. ;) Khai, the polygon count of a figure determines how changable it is. JarJar and Gollum didn't have much morphing to do. It is an absolute, that the versatility of any 3D figure is directly proportional to its polygon count. (NURBS and such discounted of course, for their complete lack of polygons) Joints can always be changed, textures swap out with just a click, but you can only morph a figure so far before those stretching polys start making some ugly effects.

true.. but they did'nt try and make the same mesh into everything. thats the drawback. we try and make M and V into every imaginable shape, bodytype, ethnic group. sorry. that just does not work. and no amount of arguing is going to change that fact. a properly made model for one ethnic group will always be superior to trying to morph the shit outta M or V, trying to get the same effect. they are very versitile models yes. for the ideal caucasian. but taking it beyond that.. they fall down. (see my comments on the Unimesh Fallacy for details)

The image set below is from my last attempt to get Vicki to look unique. These are interesting, but still look like Vicki to me. I could have kept going, but that's about as far as I could get with dial spinning; it was magnets next. But I was discourage by the fact that even if I could get her face under control, I would always be plagued with the disfigured shoulder/upper-arm and the fold at the elbow (see final image). And Vicki's hands are too large, which does not respond if you attempt to scale. Also, there is the hit to be taken in every render by the high poly count.

Luckily, I found EJ. Lower poly. FAR more control over the face than Vickie, because of the genius morphs created by 3Dream (Jose Silva). And her shoulders are normal!

All figures below Vickie 3

::::: Opera :::::

FWIW...the new V3 SAE base, included in the Anniversary Bundle, has the hand dials pioneered by the Elemental. You can scale her hands now. There are also "grasp" dials.

Not sure if this update will be available to everyone, but I suspect it probably will be.

OK, Opera, Now I see what is meant by 'badly shaped arm joints'. Poor Vicky's arms seem about to fall off. It would be nice to see the results on the EJ alternative you mention. Bagoas

Pose and shot sequence, study of full body and especially shoulders, hands and elbows of Poser5Woman (Judy) with EJ morphs.

Please note: I am not going for Glam or Fantasy or Bomshell here. This is Karen, a dancer with a slight body and full red-head coloring. She is a serious artist.

Images are fully nude. Format, jpg 50-200k open in new window.

Portrait of Karen, click here.

Various shots of the same pose:
study 1, click here.
study 2, click here.
study 3, click here.
study 4, click here.
study 5, click here.
study 6, click here.
study 7, click here.

Now, EJ has another side. Her big, rolicking, voluptuous, dangerous-curved, extroverted, free-spirited wild red-head side. We owe this to 'posermatic' who created a spectacular character/texture for EJ. Take a look, here.

::::: Opera :::::