Here is a pic of this Victorian gentleman I'm currently working on. As you can see, I'm using Daz's 19thC Suit + Dandy texture, Renderosity's Wolfgang for M3 and RDNA's IC3. The dude might even talk one day, but for now, it's just going to be a leaderhead for Civilization III. Now, for some questions!

1. Does anyone know of any, or how to create, outdoor lights that simulate a brisk winter's day? At the moment, Wolfgang just doesn't look like he's feeling the cold.

2. This preview is from the face cam, but you'll notice that his eyes are looking towards the viewer's left. Is there a way of fixing his eyes at the camera, rather than reposing the eyes frame-by-frame?

3. I'd like the character to blink at certain points during the animation, so, e.g. I have him start blinking at frame 9, full blink at 11 and finish blink at 13. Unfortunately, this makes his eyes bulge in the frames on either side. Any tips on how to fix this?

4. Ideally, I would like Wolfgang's skin to look a bit more weatherbeaten. However, if I apply a different texture I lose the beard. Can anyone think of a way to make him look more, well, rough?

1. Traveler has numerous light sets in the free stuff at RunTime DNA. The four most recent entries in Free Lights have a winter theme. 2. Load a ball prop into the scene. Select each eye and use the Point At function (Object menu --> Point At) to make them look at the ball. Position the ball somewhere well behind your face camera. 4. Increase the strength of the bump or displacement map?

3. Add some keyframes both before and after the blink to nail down that spline curve. Or, if you don't feel like wrestling with splines, you could switch to linear interpolation.

Cool, thanks to both of you. The ball prop makes it better, but not perfect. Still, I suppose it'll do. And keyframing on either side works wonders for the blink.

Ok, I increased the bump map strength form 0.08 to 0.1 Here is the result. I don't think that that's weather-beaten enough, but if I up the strength any more the beard starts to look funny (you'll notice that it's already raised up on the left)

Well, I was wondering if I could get some general feedback on this latest version. I added a set of lights to the last version. I still think that the character looks a bit cartoony, althought I do like the fact that the character generally looks as though he is in the jpg background. Additionally, does anyone have any good ideas for giving him red, ruddy cheeks? I could do it in postwork, but I'd rather not for 121 frames. I suppose I could also modify the Wolfgang texture itself and then apply that to the animation, but I'm not confident with modifying texture maps in PSP. Any tips?

goddangit, forgot the pic, sorry

I might be able to help with the cheeks, if you have Poser 5.

Thanks for replying so quickly. Certainly do have Poser 5. What do you need?

Step 1:

Right-click-and-save this image to your hard drive. Give it a more memorable name, like M3RosyCheeks.jpg or something, rather than the numeric twaddle that R'osity automatically assigns to attached images.

great thanks, so is it just a case of opening up the wolfgang head texture and pasting as transparent selection? They look a bit close together, so should I paste each one in seperately?

Step 2:

In Poser's Material Room, go to the face material and create a Color_Math node. Plug your Michael texture into Value_1, and then plug the Color_Math node into the Diffuse_Color channel.

Step 3:

Set the Math_Argument to Multipy.

Step 4:

Create a new image_map node and plug it into Value_2. Load M3RosyCheeks.jpg (or whatever you called it) into the image node.

Step 5:

Render.

If the effect is too strong, you can reduce the Texture_Strength value on the image node.

great thanks, so is it just a case of opening up the wolfgang head texture and pasting as transparent selection? No. This can be done entirely in Poser. You don't have to touch PSP.

aah, i jumped the gun a bit there, sorry - that's that ebot finally working. Anyway, thank you

Message edited on: 01/16/2005 09:56

Thanks for all your help. Okay, here is the pic, at what will be actual size, with the rosy cheeks set at a strength of 0.6. What do you think? Still a bit too make-upy? Incidentally, should I delete the initial head texture map?

Looks okay to me, but I'm not really a good judge of makeup.

Incidentally, should I delete the initial head texture map?

No. You're still using it, aren't you?

I am still using the head texture, but since it's now in there twice, I should delete the first one - but you're no doubt correct anyway.

That rosy cheeks texture really is a godsend, thank you so much. Incidentally, here is a new pic with the texture strength of the rosy cheeks set to 5, so you can compare with the one above

Message edited on: 01/16/2005 11:40

and at strength 4

try a little of the makeup effect on the forehead and nose as well

I am still using the head texture, but since it's now in there twice, I should delete the first one .... Oh. Well, then, yes, of course ... if you have two copies of the head-texture node, go ahead and delete one. As long as the other's hooked up properly. That RosyCheeks image should work on all of DAZ's Unimesh figures, by the way. And the GIRL with V3 mapping.

I hate to impose on you again, Little_Dragon, since you've already done so much, but grammy's made a good suggestion regarding the nose and forehead. Would you be willing to make a similar rosy texture for use there as well?

How's this?

Hey that's great. Many, many thanks. You should actually give some thought to putting that in the Freebies section. Damn useful. Anyway, here is another pic. What does everyone think? Not totally sold on eye-colour, and the lighting (on 2nd thoughts) is maybe a bit bright, but I'm reasonably happy with this.

Yah...fairly convincing. The basic idea for lighting an overcast scene is that the "key" light (the sunlight) is diffuse and cool -- color temperatures up to 8,000 K. The "fill" light, bounce from the scenery, is a little warmer. The one thing I'd do is rime his hat and coat a little. Esp with cold damp weather, little ice crystals stick to wool fabrics (and melt, depending on temperature), so you'd get a little white shiny stuff on shoulders and crown. Similarly, water vapour in the breath condenses on beard and lashes, making them wet and shiny (again, depending on the temperature and humidity). A little touch of this esp right around the mouth could help. Looks nice!