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

Also for free alternatives checkout Sixus1's "Project Human" line and Mayadoll. Also check out Sixus1's store at www.poserproducts.com Hair can be found at www.digitalbabes2.com... Cost? Free. There are a number of low cost alternatives for clothing out on sites like www.poserpros.com and www.runtimedna.com. And Dodger has a tutorial on clothing conversion.

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...

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

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..

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Attached Link: Return of the Green Skull

If you're just starting out in Poser, let me also suggest some characters that come free with Poser 5-- I'm talking about the Poser P4 high-rez Man and Woman. There's a lot of stuff out there to support these characters-- most of it's free. Good skin textures for women by AprilYSH, and for men by John on the Run. These models don't look good in closeup, but otherwise they're fun to use. They're low rez, which makes them excellent learning tools. I did an entire graphic novel, Return of The Green Skull, using P4 models (I used Victoria and Michael for a few closeups.) A little rough around the edges, but I think it holds up pretty well.

P4 models can be as good as poser 5 models on close up due to Poser5 smoothing... I am working on a version of posette that will have a smother face and would accept V1-2 textures -> NEA pitklad

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.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

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.]

"I am a good person now and it feels... well, pretty much the same as I felt before (except that the headaches have gone away now that I'm not wearing control top pantyhose on my head anymore)"

• Monkeysmell

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.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

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.

Operaguy, I don't believe everyone needs to know how to build everything from scratch in order to be successful. It's one thing to say that is your opinion, and quite another to state the rest of us who disagree are wrong. By the way, didn't Runtime DNA have at least something to do with the creation of Don and Judy. Look at the description of the textures.

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-

<-insert words of wisdom here->

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.

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.

"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.

docandraider.com -- the collected cartoons of Doc and Raider

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 :::::

Is the EJ figure compatible with the face room? The face room is not really half as bad as people say, I think it is one of the most underrated parts of poser 5. The face making is not automatic and sometimes doesn`t work, but it is still quite useful.

EJ is not compatible with the face room. Here's what 3Dream says: EJ is not compatible with Face Room, but with 472 head morph targets, you can do male , female or fantasy heads, as many as you want, with precision ::::: Opera :::::

If it isnt compatible with the face room, why didnt he just make a completely new figure?

As it turned out, the only characters compatible with the Face Room are the Poser-native characters.

Message edited on: 12/27/2004 23:05

xantor, i don't know what you mean, but you can certainly ask him. I don't know why EJ is incompatible, since she is based on Judy. ::::: Opera :::::

I meant if EJ is not compatible with the face room then why wasn`t EJ just made as a completely different figure? I suppose it would be easier to convert an existing figure than to build a new one from scratch.

Thank you, Opera Guy, for sharing the EJ pictures. Very illustrative. Her shoulders are much better indeed, though still a little too tiny compared to the upper arms. A little postwork can solve that. And there's nothing wrong with her face. Bagoas

Can be solved by dials, easily. I have hardly even touched the body morphs until today. ::::: Opera :::::

No probs, Melanie. ;) Just making sure disinformation didn't propogate - it's the only thing known that exceeds the speed of light in forums. grin And there's plenty of it about.

"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!"

I did as well: I started out on Poser 2 in '95? '96? - not long after I first discovered it. I remember meticulously painting features on Poser 2 texture maps. My first efforts at that were rather horrid. ;)

Best answer I think to the origional poster's question: "Is it really necessary to buy V3, Freak, Michael3, S3, etc... ?" is....

It really depends on what you want to do. It depends a LOT on just what it is that you want to do:

1. You just want to learn the ropes, make good images, learn to do conforming, texturing and morphing, and possibly make the odd freebie or whatever available, then "No." Posette and Dork [and Don and Judy] are perfectly adequate and more than. You can do fantastic imagery with nothing more than the basic figures. Sean_Martin and Hack_Worthless and any number of people are proof of that by virtue of their work.

It's not the tools, it's the weilder. Period. You have the skill, you can do whatever you need to with whatever comes to hand.

And you develop the skill with work, not toys and the latest gadgets. ;)

I'd say personally that you're better off learning the skills with poser and dork, because you have to work harder at making them look "top shelf", and you learn a lot more useful skills that way than you do with the push-button-packages.

But not many people in these forums are going to tell you that, because they didn't learn the hard way.

2. If you want to keep up with the latest fads and be able to buy and use all of the latest store items and textures and freebies - "Yes". You need the newest and latest because that's all that the merchant communities support. You realy almost have to follow the latest Daz trends there because that's really all the bulk of the merchants support.

That's going to hold true ad infinitum: Daz releases Vicki 4, and support for Vicki 3 will drop to almost nil except from a rare handful of merchants and freestuff providers.

3. Same goes for merchandising: the non-Vicki stuff is niche merchandise, and it has limited markets. If one wants to be a high selling merchant, one tends to follow the newest Daz releases - Vickie, Mike, Freak and whatever.

Building a market for non-Victoria items as RDNA, Sixus1 and others have done takes a lot of work, consistent quality, and a lot of creative marketing, and the Poser markets tend to run along the paths of least resistance and easiest sales.

4. You want the "Ooohs and Ahhs and Yer a GAWD!" comments in the galleries, oh hell yes - you need to follow the fads. ;)

OR you need to get good enough that you make the fads, and everyone follows you. grin

Figure out what you want out of this, srrdude, and then your question is going to answer itself. The tools you need to use and master are going to be contained within the parameters of the goals.

And no matter what anyone else tries to tell you: there is no wrong choice to pick from the above. There's only what works best for you. ;)

Free advice. Worth ever penny.

"I am a good person now and it feels... well, pretty much the same as I felt before (except that the headaches have gone away now that I'm not wearing control top pantyhose on my head anymore)"

• Monkeysmell

More variety from base tools...

This is Jimmy, a jazz musician, 'sort of' based on a friend who is
not alive any longer, who I miss. Oddly, the most unusual feature,
the mouth and lips, are the closest to the real Jimmy!

Click here to open in new window. Format: TIFF 1.75MB, will display in Quicktime or WMP, please be patient

Model: Poser5Woman+EJ (Eternal Judy by 3Dream)
Texture: based on Nikki, but significantly customized by myself
Bump Map: reversed out and custom contrast from texture
Shader: Natural Skin Shader, (face-Off)
Post-process: only to fix break between head and body texture,
I don't have the body texture correct yet, plus a
little work around the ear. All else strictly Poser5+Firefly.

I am happy to get such a different, older
character without purchasing new texture or
anything. There is much to improve here... the
eyeballs are too white, there should be
signs of a hairline, even though Jimmy is bald,
the ear is out of focus because I don't understand
depth-of-field yet in Poser5 and the texture
is slightly too deep, even thou he was pretty craggy.

::::: Opera :::::

EJ isn't compatible with the face room due to the creation of new morphs and the shifting of the existing vertices. The face room depends on a detailed database of exactly where each and every morph and vertex is; if the geometry is altered, boom.

Can I get back to the original question? It's not necessary to buy extras with Poser. It is necessary to decide how you want to use Poser. You may want to depend on exterior and-- for the most part-- superior purchased models. Especially if you have no desire ever to model anything. Like, me having no talent whatsoever in that area. You may want to concentrate on Posette-- a very very study and well studied model with tons of possibilities for add-ons and magnets and morphs, not all but most of them free. You want to see what people can do with wit and imagination check out Den Tracy's gallery at PoserPros. He may have one here too. I don't go to the rocity galleries often, too huge to maneuver. He works almost entirely with freebies and does incrediable serial stories with characters he has perfected over a long period of time. I decided I wanted to tell stories too-- but with higher end models and I did so for some time in the Aldara Project at Rdna with V2 and Steph and some odd varieties of Mike2. It's been hard trying to convert these over to the higher end of V3 etc. Too many polygons to get a huge crowd going. At any rate, I knew what I wanted to do before I bought Poser, from cruising these forums, and the galleries and seeing what others were doing and what I wanted to do from that. Then I budgeted in V2 and M2 in my Poser budget before I purchased the program-- bang, no sticker shock. I suggest others do the same, it's a lot easier to get a handle on what you want from the program before you buy. Cheers, Emily

I tried to get by using Posette and Dork for the first year or so. It was utter agony. Even the simplest poses seemed to break their knees or elbows. In my own experience, the Poser 4 native figures are just not dependable or useable. I had great hopes for the "native" Poser 5 characters, but they just never really caught on. That leaves only one decent alternative: DAZ characters.

The first couple of years I used poser I downloaded a lot of freestuff to use, including figures. I didn`t have victoria 2 or 3 then because they werent made yet at that time. Sixus1 and combat bunny have a lot of good free stuff and many other sites have free things to try before you need to bother with the daz stuff IMO.

By the way,operaguy, I can understand your frustrations if that's as different as you were able to make V3-- she can be much more malleable than that and can look just about anyway you want-- I'll admit it's hard to make her look ordinary but possible. I like Stephanie for that. She has a set of sharper more sarcastic features. I like her for that. But My V3's don't look like your variants. For one thing, I don't like round faces and accent the cheekbones much more. I don't have much on my current machine, but here's one of my avatars made when V3 just came out. Emily

emily, your avatar at least does look like she came from a different tribe! Thanks. Luckily, while I WAS frustrated a month ago while trying to get Vickie to look like people, I am not frustrated now, because i let go of her.... I am flowing in power with my current solution. Last night I created that jazz musician older black guy in about 2 hours. Tonight I am working on a dignified older professor, female, whose face looks lived in. Other ethnicities and ages to come. what's your solution for Vickie's bad shoulder/upper arm and the fold at the elbow that looks like a bent straw? And when I look at Stephanie, she seems to have the same affliction. [note: post processing is not a solution to this for an animator.] ::::: Opera :::::

All the unimeshes have that damn upperarm anomaly-- I don't seem to have as much problem with the elbows. I'm lucky I don't animate. I think V3 would be hell to animate in any form other than RR cause she's just too huge--inhabits that area right at the border where Poser fails actually. All I can do is avoid over head arm stuff. V2 did not have the same awful problem and there's a picture in my gallery called Rapture that -- I think-- does arms overhead acceptably. Maybe I accept less perfection. My former fave for storytelling was Steff 1 and she's brittle as straw but strangely appealing like a gangly colt. I think we want different things from our programs and are willing to take different tradeoffs to get them. I don't have time to model-- or talent. Judy does not inspire me at all, unfortunately. V3 inspires me a little, Sp3 does alot and she's brittle too but human. Also, I love postwork, I'm good at it. There's is in postwork two chances to play, first I do the very best I can with Poser and then the very best I can with PhotoShop. This is why I say, you have to know what you want before you buy into this program or any program. I played around in these forums for three months while I was deciding to get back into 3d. I did it to stimulate my mind as I was getting older. To teach an old dog a new trick. Poser 5 almost broke me, it was so hard to learn. I pity those starting with 5 who just want to play-- I really want to say-- start with Artist, suck up the awful library mess and learn fast and cheap and fun. And, by the way, I really like your early characters-- especially the lower right Judy with Koz's ponytail, she's cute as a button and utterly real. It is Judy, right. I also wonder if Shade wouldn't give me more tools to work with. But I'm disabled now and under pretty strong pain-killers so my learning time hasw lessened. So has my Poser time. Unfortunately-- you can tell from the gallery how long it's been since I've been able to work. Trying to get everything moved from a huge Dell desktop to a small laptop has been agonising and just when everything was supposed to go togethr my firewire card busted. I'm hoping that's all it was. I should be able to mount some small runtimes any day now though. And be back in business. I have one dark and acouple of light holiday pics in mind and dang it, you're getting em late.;)) Keep doing what you're doing operaguy. You're doing it very well. I'm just trying to present an alternative view. Emily

All the unimeshes have that damn upperarm anomaly-- I don't seem to have as much problem with the elbows. I'm lucky I don't animate. I think V3 would be hell to animate in any form other than RR cause she's just too huge--inhabits that area right at the border where Poser fails actually. All I can do is avoid over head arm stuff. V2 did not have the same awful problem and there's a picture in my gallery called Rapture that -- I think-- does arms overhead acceptably. Maybe I accept less perfection. My former fave for storytelling was Steff 1 and she's brittle as straw but strangely appealing like a gangly colt. I think we want different things from our programs and are willing to take different tradeoffs to get them. I don't have time to model-- or talent. Judy does not inspire me at all, unfortunately. V3 inspires me a little, Sp3 does alot and she's brittle too but human. Also, I love postwork, I'm good at it. There's is in postwork two chances to play, first I do the very best I can with Poser and then the very best I can with PhotoShop. This is why I say, you have to know what you want before you buy into this program or any program. I played around in these forums for three months while I was deciding to get back into 3d. I did it to stimulate my mind as I was getting older. To teach an old dog a new trick. Poser 5 almost broke me, it was so hard to learn. I pity those starting with 5 who just want to play-- I really want to say-- start with Artist, suck up the awful library mess and learn fast and cheap and fun. And, by the way, I really like your early characters-- especially the lower right Judy with Koz's ponytail, she's cute as a button and utterly real. It is Judy, right. I also wonder if Shade wouldn't give me more tools to work with. But I'm disabled now and under pretty strong pain-killers so my learning time hasw lessened. So has my Poser time. Unfortunately-- you can tell from the gallery how long it's been since I've been able to work. Trying to get everything moved from a huge Dell desktop to a small laptop has been agonising and just when everything was supposed to go togethr my firewire card busted. I'm hoping that's all it was. I should be able to mount some small runtimes any day now though. And be back in business. I have one dark and acouple of light holiday pics in mind and dang it, you're getting em late.;)) Keep doing what you're doing operaguy. You're doing it very well. I'm just trying to present an alternative view. Emily

Queri, one thing you can consider trying at least. If your desktop is still operational, and you have a network card (wireless would probably be best), you might still be able to access a larger hard drive on your desktop computer, and use it for Poser on your laptop?! Does that make any sense? I might try it myself if I can afford to buy a laptop.

Emily,

Thanks for the support and kind words. Yes, animating
Vickie is daunting. That's one of the reasons I let go
of her, even if I COULD solve the shoulder/elbow/stubbornFace problems.

[Note: the clips below are quite short; they are just practice.
Also, no nudity or crudity!]

For instance, here is a vid, my last Vickie
animation. The render time was over 2.5 min per frame.
Hi-Res short clip, Vickie 3 morphed by myself.
Click here, opens in new window, Quicktime 6.432 MB so please be patient.

Here is my FIRST animation of EJ, the one you think is
'cute as a button' in her Koz pony tail. I have a crush
on her. Even though I kicked up the render intensity
on this vid, the render time per frame was UNDER 1 minute.
Click here, opens in new window, Quicktime 1.632 MB so please be patient.

Here is another...slightly romantic! There are TWO EJ's in this video.
Render time was 87 seconds per frame.
Click here, opens in new window, Quicktime 3.222 MB so please be patient.

By the way, if anyone thinks I am off-topic, I am not.
The question is...should srrdude (or anyone) purchase the Daz characters.

::::: Opera :::::

BB, thank you, I have some networking abilities but the speed is terrible 2k per whatever to transfer data-- I couldn't ever do Poser at that speed-- couldn't even get on the web-- fortunately, web speed is faster. I'm hoping the firewire card is the problem-- I can't do web and Poser at once, but I don't anyway, so that's no prob. We'll see soon, Friday or Monday. Networking is sooooo hair pullingly complicated just when everything seems great, something falls out of the network and we're back to zero. My tech's doing linksys. And he's a sweetie, no charge unless it works. Operguy, I don't have a fast enough weblink to do animations, sorry, I trust you though and the times are impressive. Emily

More flexibility without any Daz whatsoever.
Except to open the tif in my graphics software and
fix one little problem on the lips, and to make
the .jpg, this is a straight Firefly Render from Poser5.

Model: Poser5Woman + EJ
Character: Dials spun by operaguy, this is Georgia, a teacher
Texture: Golden Girls, modified
Bump Map: made from Golden Girls modified texture
Shader: Real Skin Shader by face_off
Render Settings: Depth Shadows and Displacement Maps, Granite and Bump texture
Execution: Bucket 128, Min Shader 0.2000 555x720 72DPI
Hair: Egypt Hair by 3Dream

::::: Opera :::::

The georgia character would look better with a higher focal length setting 100 is good for portraits. The character is very good but using the faceroom and plain judy this kind of character must be possible, too.

Neat image. EJ is lovely. But so far, all the characters I've seen have looked pretty much alike. They all have that child-like, round face and little-girl eyes. Even where you've clearly tried to eliminate it, it's still there. To me, EJ always looks like a 15-year-old girl.

xantor, yes the focal length is wrong. and your comment about the face room and Judy makes my point! Who needs Daz when you work with the tools. randy, did you look at the jazz musician in post 61 above? I'll post a jpg later today. gotta run. ::::: Opera :::::

Example of "non-cute-round-face" model dirived from EJ
(also see post #61 above)

::::: Opera :::::

Sorry, it still looks like a 15-year-old girl. Trying to pass as older, maybe. :-) The roundness of the face is mitigated because of the angle of the image. But I still find the eyes very unnatural looking. They are a young girl's eyes.

randym77,

your criticizm of the eyes is justified. I am working on it. Jimmy did have unusual eyes, but I don't have it right. There are several things wrong with the eyes. I will do a repost as I solve that problem.

however, if and when he gets proper eyes you STILL think he looks like a 15 year old girl, I would request your specific reasons, because that would be an extreme comment. And if true, you may push me to look deeper.

That having been said.....are you this critical of Vickie, et. al, regarding sameness??? Because Vickies looks FAR FAR more the same in every use on all Poser Forums everywhere and all Galleries than these characters do.

And if you have achieved a level of uniqueness and variety beyond both the Vickie clone world and my little beginner attempts here to stamp out 'clone-ism', would you kindly share your approach...it would be very welcome.

::::: Opera :::::

Randy, I just visited your gallery and have a question. Your image of the bloke with the croc... here is what you say... Michael 3 with the M3 Head Sculpture Pack, Book Pack, and "Christian" texture. and I would say that guy has some pretty non-clone attributes. Can you comment if Michael3 is capable of a lot of acutal, distinctive variety? and what is the sculpture pack, how does it work? Thanks ::::: Opera :::::

I'm always critical. :-)

I don't think V3's eyes always look the same. M3's eyes always do. And his jaw. Though there are some morph packs out there that can disguise it a bit.

As I said previously, I don't think V3 has to always look the same. (Her arms, maybe, but not her face.) People just like the way she looks. She's a Barbie doll, and Barbie is not only always beautiful, she's always very conventionally beautiful. I'm guilty of it myself. I start out planning to make someone different looking, but end up tweaking the dials to make her easier on the eye, and the next thing you know, she looks like all the others.

The M3 Sculpture Pack is sold at DAZ. It gives you a new CR2, with channels for injecting 300 more morphs. (No, you don't have to inject all of them!) There are also a couple of jaw morphs in Free Stuff that do a lot to fix M3's distinctive, sharp jaw.

IMO, M3 is much harder to make different-looking than V3, but in the galleries, you see a lot more variation in M3. I really think it's because our standards of beauty for women are much narrower than for men. A 40-year-old guy can still be a hunk, a 40-year-old woman is "too old."

There's a V3 Sculpture Pack as well, and "Brom," which is Capsces' fantastic morph pack for M3. I use them often, but I don't do much animation.

M3 and V3 are awfully heavy for animation. The injectable morph system helps, but probably not enough.

I have much more of a problem with M3 than V3. They really did load her up with a ton of very changeable morphs, a few more came with the International pack but IMO that was to beef up SP3 who desperately needed it. Still, the best morphs for SP3 come from independant work not the Daz packs. As always, my opinion, exception are Bethany and Ceilie Mahan, both incrediable Steff morph, the latter really looks Irish and interesting. I have plans for her.heheheh. M3 is skinny, with a jaw that is almost impossible to eradicate--I seriously prefer M2, whose bod is horribly clunky. I don't mean this politically, but M3 reminds me of a nazi. It's not just the jaw as I'm terribly fond of the Freak. It takes a major effort to get that rail-thin SS image out of my head. Rawn's and Ghost of MacBeth's work have helped greatly. Nouschka also does seedy M3's that truly humanise him. What annoys me is that I can't seem to humanise him. M3 desperately needs the International morph exstension treatment. I got the sculpture kit but, haven't had much luck. Lazy, ya see. I can spend an afternoon dialing different V3's easily and happily. All pretty much Eastern European varieties, which is not what you see in the stores. Long noses, harsh cheekbones, deep sunk eyes. Not terribly young. But for an all round unimesh guy, give me David, a real human being with pudge problems-- you know he overdid the beer on the holidays and is making impossible diet promises for the New Year. I love David. He is certainly not limited to young, does middleaged much more comfortably than M3 who is the father-in-law you dread. And I want him in M3 clothes! Not possible since I refuse to learn the Cloth room. It seems so darn much work for a one time use of one article of clothing. Sheesh. All of Capsces's morphs are magnificent for working with. Don't be put off by the cartoony look. You don't have to use any of the morphs at full value. A teensy bit here and there and it's pretty easy to get to reality very fast. I haven't done anything with them since M2--lazy art moi--but it took all of ten minutes, probably less, to get a realistic Tartar leader and fit him in clothes,close enough for jazz. Her morphs are essential to any unimesh. I'm eagerly awaiting the possibilities for Aiko,since I passed on The Girl whom I'm very sorry I got. Lovely but very limited. In my hands. Oh, I have one story that involves her and toontown, if I ever get the energy to do it, but then. . .?? I hope we haven't thrown the original subject too much to the winds, but this has been an interesting discussion and just the thing I would want if I was considering buying poser for the first time. Emily

I, too, much prefer David to M3. But there's more stuff for M3, so I still use him a lot. I've heard you can adjust M3's clothing to fit David, but it sounds like even more work than the cloth room. If you haven't tried them, try Lyrra's "jawcorner morphs for M3," in Free Stuff. They do a great job softening M3's jaw. I love Capsces' morphs. I didn't buy the Girl, but "Boopsie" almost made me change my mind.

I continue to be happy to report success
easily spawning new characters from my base set of tools.
No Daz models were harmed in the creating of this image.

Model: Poser5Woman + EJ
Texture: Two of Hearts
Hair: Kozoboro
Shader: Real Skin Shader

::::: Opera :::::

Emily, when are we going to see images of your un-Vicki-ized Eastern European ladies. Can you post an image? ::::: Opera :::::

Attached Link: Got Milk

Here's a few of mine-- the desaturated girl at 12 noon-- the background upon which I composited all the rest-- is the first V3 I made, kinda round-faced french, I liked her worried expression. Around 1 o'clock is Sensa, my eastern european gal, I like her, Her nose works in profile-- which my avatar does not, unfortunately. The guy in the lower right corner is also V3, not as butch as I wanted but as Butch as I could get. The blonde at 9pm is Jenny at 40, one of my better efforts I thought. The little postworked girl at 7pm is Steffie 1, still one of my favorite characters, combined from a lot of textures and morphs, but not V3. As you can see, I haven't done much for awhile. The link is to one of my better renders, only in my opinion, M2 and V2 and more realistic actually than any of these. I'm thinking seriously of going back to the older version, at least for some of my work. Don't know if you can see these without registering but they are some of my best and all 2 generation V's, S's and M's. http://www.poserpros.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17277 http://www.poserpros.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8295 http://www.poserpros.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4318

Actually, the middle one from my PoserPros gallery is my oldest Vicki3-- late forties, I'd say. I'm still, afterlooking through my galleries, more impressed with my V2s, Steff 1's and M2-- though less so there, lots of work to make Mike2 do more than lumber. Slim Michael helped. So they got him real slim for M3 and I complain about that.LOL No pleasing me, is there? Toxic Angel's Ogre with a combo of textures is still my fav though. He has the most expressive hands. And a great sarcastic face. Emily

I like Father Abbassya the best. That's quite a composition! Also like the green-top girl above...she is too thin in the face for health, but father abba makes up for it! Thanks for showing your images...keep up the fight to get character out of Vicki. ::::: Opera :::::

Just to give a sample, this is a Vicky 2 character. I bought V2 in the recent DAZ sale, while the hair and textures are in the Platinum Club. The A2Z pack is very good value.

It doesn't show well in this scale -- you need a close-up -- but one of the things I did was to break the symmetry on the face. Where there are seperate controls for right and left, such as some of the area around the eyes, set them slightly different..

The pose helps add to that, and I also tweaked scales slightly on a few body parts.

The background colour is also slightly off-white, matching the default for this page.

I've done similar pictures using Posette as a base, but V2 does give better control.

Operaguy: those Karen pictures are good, though I would have maybe tweaked a few details. Lip-position, for instance. Something feels slightly wrong about the face, the region between the eyes. Might be right for copying a real person, but we expect different things for "original" characters.

I agree that going for a-symmetry is important. As has been pointed out by many studies, our biological instincts attract us to symmetry as "beauty." This is most likely why people resist changing Vickie's face; by leaving it alone you achieve perfect mathematical symmetry. More than one person has mentioned that when they attempted to 'dial away' from perfect-zero-Vickie, they end up dialing back again, pulled by the strong tide of "beauty." Meanwhile, in real life, yes, we flip over a man or woman or child whose face is nearly the same, left and right, and whose features are spaced by a certain geometrical 'pleasing' proportion. But...not 1000%. If you saw the real equivelent of Vickie, you would get sqeamish. Every human, even the ones with symmetrical faces, have something slightly askew, something joltingly out of round...that's what makes you take notice. Anyway, that's my two cents on that, and I'm glad Vickie 2 has left/right dials to aid in this. EJ, of course, has them to the nth degree. ::::: Opera :::::

AntoniaTiger,
I am open to constructive criticism, of course, and welcome it. Your paragraph...I need some help understanding it, if you are willing. I assume you are referring to the Karen images of her one dance pose in post #51 above. Note: there are really two poses there, the 'portrait', and then a series of images of her in exactly the same pose, taken from different angles.

You say they are good...but give no indication of what was good or why you liked them. Not being specific about a compliment is just as unrewarding as not being specific about a negative.

You say you would have "tweaked the lip position" but don't say exactly what is wrong with the lips.

"Something is wrong about the face, the region between the eyes," but that can't help me in any way. To say 'something is wrong' but then not be specific either means 1) you simply don't like a certain feature; 2) you know what is wrong and are withholding the information from me; 3) you 'feel' something and are telling me about it in the hopes I will feel it too and fix it. Etc.

This sentence: "Might be right for copying a real person, but we expect different things for "original" characters."
I did not understand. First of all, I am not clear if it refers to the unspecified wrongness between the eyes, or of the character in general. Second, can you indicate what you mean about "copying a real person" vs creating "original characters?" I am not 'copying' real people. I am attempting to invent completely fictional characters, with as much originality as possible, but who COULD be real, who you might see walking down the street.

Thank you for your comments and additional ones are welcome.

::::: Opera :::::

I think it's that last point which made me hesitant about the details. I had the impression that there was a real Karen, who I was trying not to insult. The area between the eyes, and a little above, eyebrows and nose, looks pushed inward. I can't tell whether it's a lighting effect or the actual model. There's usually at least some slight step as the nose reaches the brow line, unless somebody has a big nose. As for the lips, try looking in a mirror, and compare how they part with the jaw closed, and as the teeth seperate. I don't know what morphs you have available, but the lower edge of the upper lip, and the upper edge of the lower lip, seems too straight. It's almost an animation problem. Think of it as a single frame in the middle of a movement. Is she breathing through her mouth, or starting to smile? If she's opening her mouth there can be a momentary stickiness -- surface tension? -- opposing the movement, and it isn't there when they're closing. And, I confess, it's the sort of slight lip-opening that I don't think I've ever managed to get convincing.

For anyone looking, this issue is best seen in Post #51 above, Study 3.

Yes, this is one frame of an animation and yes, her mouth is slightly open in expression...it is not necessarily a 'pretty' position. I saw that, reached for a dial to 'fix' it into something comfortable, and stopped. She is in the middle of a dance sequence and there is some stress in her mouth as she efforts, emotes, breathes and transitions. So, you are very observant to note that distortion, and it is a deliberate choice.

There IS a flat spot between her eyes that seems to catch a big reflection in most images of her. That was a morph move by me. Actually, I'd prefer not to 'fix' it in the sense of putting the dial back to zero in the default position, but rather to put some additional character there...

I will play around with that one particular spot and perhaps change it, perhaps not. She has a crooked nose, too.

Thank you for your feedback.

::::: Opera :::::

More flexibility without any Daz whatsoever.

Except as I understand it, DAZ are the ones who designed Judy. :-)

Cubed designed Judy and Don...

But Judy and Don are just modifications of Posette and Dork...which were made by Zygote/DAZ.

Posette and dork were made by zygote not daz.

regarding my comment "More flexibility without any Daz whatsoever"....

My intent is: More flexibility without the current dominant unimesh culture and attendant problems and costs, as elucidated at length in this thread and others.

The point, posited in post 17 above, is not specifically "Anti-Daz" per se, it is 'you can achieve great things, great tools, great fleixbility without participating in the Unimesh emeshment.

Long live Judy/EJ and toolmaking/learning.

::::: Opera :::::

Message edited on: 02/02/2005 19:56

Message edited on: 02/02/2005 19:58

Then you should have said "no unimesh." :-) A lot of people prefer older figures, such as Posette, Victoria 1, Victoria 2, and the original Stephanie. Smaller the better for animators. And some people just don't don't like morph injection, or don't have computers powerful enough to handle generation 3 figures. I still think Judy's kind of creepy-looking, though. I like Posette better than Judy. Though some people have done cool things with Judy, such as 3Dream and Yamato.

ok, point taken long live the non-unimesh world and tool making/learning! ::::: Opera :::::