bragging on our latest and greatest stuff, like, say, a '1325-man-hours-and-counting!' render of a homemade meshed, rigged, and textured cockroach crawling across a homemade meshed and textured tabletop laden with homemade meshed and textured dinner clutter. Ah, yes.....the dream of every true 3D artiste. Cockroaches and old food.

And spending 1325 man hours to create it. Just what I've always wanted to do. CGtalk, here I come.........

"And spending 1325 man hours to create it. Just what I've always wanted to do." Then you render it in poser with the default lighting.... and it looks like crap. ;o)

Then you render it in poser with the default lighting....
and it looks like crap.

No....I wouldn't trust such an important scene to Poser.

I'd rather spend $1500.00 or so on Lightwave. Then, I'll be a real proffesssyonyal.

I'll be able to turn out cockroaches with the best of them.

The bugs wouldn't get as many hits as a NVIATWAS render -- but then I'd be able to start searching Turbosquid for $360.00 human models -- as opposed to a $6.50 V3 character in the MP here.

Who wouldn't want to be a proffesssyonyal?

LightWave is far more expensive than Poser for a large number of good reasons, one of them being its renderer.

LightWave is far more expensive than Poser for a large number of good reasons, one of them being its renderer. I'm well aware of that. Trust me....I have absolutely nothing against Lightwave. It's a great app. But, like a lousy photographer with $90,000 worth of Hasselblad equipment......the expensive app won't make up for a lack of skill on the part of the practitioner..... ......and the same goes for Poser renders. ;-)

Absolutely Xenophonz. I couldn't agree more.

You know.....I've known some photographers that can take wonderful pictures with a cheap 110 camera. And I've known others that actually had the Hasselblad -- and they couldn't photograph the side of a barn (so to speak) without messing it up.

Personally -- I don't care that the beautiful photograph happened to be shot with a 110.......... .....but on the other hand, one shouldn't blame Hasselblad for shots that look like they were made with a 110. *********************************************************** Some individuals have the ability to work magic with Poser alone. That's great. To me, it's the final work that matters. Not how the artist got there. *********************************************************** However -- one should not blame others for one's own lack of experience. Or even skill.

A photographer friend of mine knows someone who is obsessed with lens sharpness. He does all sorts of tests and spends hours inspecting the images close up. Apparently he only ever produces crap images though, when he actually gets to pointing the camera at a real subject. I suppose for some people just knowing that they have the best gear available is enough.

lol i know a person over $100,000 of camera stuff lenses, filters, cameras, etc 50 years and the only pics he ever took, used a cheap disposable camera o_o yep some odd people

I never buy products with promos that are obviously rendered in the Poser default lights, or with poorly chosen focal points for the cameras. I always figure that if the merchant doesn't know how to change those very, very basic settings to something more attractive and appropriate, they don't know much about Poser, and therefore their product will be of questionable quality. bonni

i tend to use the basic poser lights when doing renders for poser products, i want my products represented as they appear of the box so to speak. its not that im not "smart" enough to do fantastic renders of my products, and it may cost me sales, but im selling products, not artwork.

I think I agree with the idea of having either one or a small set of white lighting setups that are standard for at least one promo render, something everyone can download. On the rest of the images, knock yourself out with a Times Square lightshow if you want. Peng is right. Poser is not just somethig for artists/geeks, excuse me dedicated hobbyists anymore. You can't just assume a level of knowledge or tenacity at trial and error equivalent to your own. Sure some people will graduate to the manual SLR mode but many of them would just be content with decent snapshots. I like the photography anology because that's a field where you can choose between the disposable cardboard camera at one end, the pimped out Nikon at the other and in between, a range of cameras with enough smarts to help even a klutz take pretty good quality pictures. There really is no in between in 3D. Even Poser is more akin to a basic manual SLR. I've said before in several threads, the market is there. The technology is there to make things like lighting much easier than it is. We can do wizards, we can provide realworld referenced presets. Let those who want to tweak tweak away. Give the masses something they can achieve pleasing results with and not have to spend countless hours of ritualistic sacrifice. Whoever does that will become rich.

True enough, Peng. That's why I did say that I can see the value in having a disclaimer at the bottom of an image indicating the renderer used. Let me make that clear. :)

Just the same, I also know from the toy and game industry just how ubiquetous the phrase "product may differ slightly from image" is. A number of my friends have worked in advertising, so I may just be used to all of the modification that goes into a promotion, whether it be a trade booth or a print image.

For example, my wife and I have been working for some time to photograph my sculptures. This isn't an easy thing.

Shooting them isn't hard, but shooting them WELL is. As it turns out, part of the problem has to do with lighting. We have found that often the work is overexposed or underexposed.

Recently we spoke to a friend who is a gallery director. She indicated that the issue was all about the lighting. It now looks like we will need to get some better quality lights than what we have been using. These won't be cheap, it seems, but they have the potential to make my work look a lot better than the setup we are presently using.

I guess part of what I find myself wondering is whether one set of photos is more "honest" than the other. I am not modifying the sculptures themselves- but rather the presentation. If one is selling an item on Ebay, it makes sense to lay down a good backdrop and light the item well after taking the time to arrange it carefully, then use a tripod to steady the camera rather than simply plop it down on the kitchen table under a 75 Watt bulb and snap the piece freehand.

Just a few thoughts.

Message edited on: 03/17/2005 06:46

its not that im not "smart" enough to do fantastic renders of my products, and it may cost me sales, but im selling products, not artwork. Ah, but I'm a very visual person. If the promos don't look good to me, I won't buy the product. I don't want to have to imagine how it would look with better lighting, more artistic presentation, etc. Maybe it's just me, I dunno. I like promos that make me think, "Wow, I could make a render like that, too!" and if the promo render is lackluster, badly lit, etc. etc., it just doesn't want to make me do a render with it. :-) bonni

i hear you elizabyte, and i do try to make them look as appealing as i can,with the admittedly bad default lighting. but showing what your really buying no frills added, tends to avoid things like this completely. i was just more or less disagreeing with the idea that it should be common practice that the mechants use special light setups,rendering it in this and selling it in that, postworking in photoshop, etc. and the buyer should just take into account that, yeah this is the kind of results you can get, "with 8 hours worth of tweaking lights photoshop manip,color correction sharpening etc." with the "all at the click of the render button" sales pitch. its deceptive, i know it happens all the time, everywhere...in my eyes that still doesnt make it right. J.B.

Oh, I don't think postworking or rendering in some other program is acceptable. I just think those default lights suck, and almost nothing looks good in them. Even just changing them all to white instead of that icky yellow and greenish... shudder But the fact is, I HAVE seen some promos that were so awful I wouldn't have bought anything from the merchant, because the promos really demonstrated that the person had very little grasp of how to use the program. bonni

It's sort of basic to me. If you're selling me a product for Poser I want the renders to be done in Poser. However I don't mind if the Renders are done in Daz Studio because that program is freely available. I don't require default lighting. But it's very nice indeed if you mention the light set you used for the promos.

Funny you should mention that, Elizabyte. This reminds me of a topic over at PP once when folks were debating about the use or misuse of the term "artist".

I remember Mendhi saying something very interesting in that thread, and this is not a verbatim quote by any means, but her comment was something to the effect that much of what she saw the market as selling was material that allowed people to think of themselves as artists. In essense, a merchant is working to inspire or excite the customer to think that this character, texture, scene, etc. is the thing they need to realise a vision or create a work of beauty.

Obviously, we all know that there is a heck of a lot of work that goes into a decent piece, but it's not neccesarily the merchant's job to emphasize the labor involved.

Here's another analogy. I use power tools. Now if you watch any advertisement for a Black and Decker drill, circular saw, etc, you'll likely see a handsome, rugged looking fellow- possibly with his equally attractive wife, creating a lovely gazebo or a deck for their back yard.

Now if the ad were to show the circular saw cutting through three-quarter inch steel or poured concrete, then that would certainly be misleading.

But is it in fact misleading to show something that the tools could build, in the hands of a skilled craftsman using quality material?

For that matter, look at advertisements for most consumer products. When was the last time you saw a television or print ad showing a vaccum cleaner used by a heavyset middle aged person wearing sweatpants, fip flops and tee shirt in a cramped apartment? When's the last time you saw an ad showing a cellular phone in the hands of a gangly teenager with braces and acne, or a fat balding businessman in a rumpled suit?

Or for that matter, look at advertisements for items like paintball guns. If I've had a dollar for every time I've sen a picture of a paintball gun held by a drop-dead gorgeous model, I could afford to buy myself some of those lovely anodized pistols.
Funny how most of the folks I know who play regularly somehow never seem to be nearly as pretty. It's like a whole different sport, somehow... :)

Again, to reiterate, I think it absolutely makes sense to clarify one's render engine and postwork. That's just basic transparency.

Good discussion, folks. Edited for typos. I'm all thumbs today.

Message edited on: 03/17/2005 08:34

it's not neccesarily the merchant's job to emphasize the labor involved I agree completely. Another analogy would be knitting patterns. They always show these gorgeous finished works, and all you need to do is use the right yarn and needles and follow the pattern right? Well... more or less. But some people have more talent for knitting than others. I can tell you for sure that even if I followed those patterns to the best of my ability, the end result wouldn't look nearly as nice as the ones in the pictures. On the other hand, if my mother-in-law knitted it, it might look just as good... Maybe the knitting companies should put pictures of sweaters made by semi-competent knitters just to be sure no one is misled.... ;-P bonni

"Or for that matter, look at advertisements for items like paintball guns. If I've had a dollar for every time I've sen a picture of a paintball gun held by a drop-dead gorgeous model, I could afford to buy myself some of those lovely anodized pistols. Funny how most of the folks I know who play regularly somehow never seem to be nearly as pretty. It's like a whole different sport, somehow... :)" its a girl only sport they fill them with baby oil and umm o_o and using a render engine other than the product you are selling it for even against RMP rules if im going to use a high end render engine to render my promo instead of the program im selling it for, i may as well use photoshop or psp too its the same thing "end effect cannot be remade in the program i selling the item for"

I have bought many products unfortunately that have NOTHING to do with what was in the promo render... I have made P2 figures look like fine oil paintings or as realistic a any Milennium 3 figure, would it be fair to people to promo those characters with those images? It would simply be a courtesy to include one basic render... I purposefully render in P4 on an old PC for promos and I would probably render in P3 if I thought any newbies were still using that. If post processing is not concidered kosher that why is only showing images that display your incredible artis artist a right? I'm sure you guess of the artistry to make a low polyy cylynder look like Brittany Spears... How is it onerous to include a basic render as image number three? The examples are endless... again, I could render a single white pixel as a realistic texture using procedurals and I could airbrush a picture of a Yugo to looklike a Porsh... what would be the point? The point should be a satisfied customer. I am reminded of how many times I went to studio apartments listed as three room apartments in New York... did they imagine I wouldn't notice those other rooms were somehow missing when I came to view the apartment?

Sorry about the typing (e.g. "artis artist"="artistry"). I have parkinson's tremor that makes typing a bear. And yes I know I'm ranting... its just the mood I'm in... I usually keep my opinions to myself.

"showing what your really buying no frills added" I'd consider postwork that changes the appearance of a product in a promo adding frills or using a render engine better than Poser adding frills but I certainly don't consider using decent lighting instead of that horrible default one in Poser adding frills... It's still rendered in Poser completely only not with that shitty light.

hey even i hide or use as an edge light the shitty orange one...
just a more or less basic 3 light setup preferably white is fine too.
but the latest skin shader,fancy light set, and photo manipulation, is a bit much.
show me the product...not what rembrant,picasso can do with it in a month.

show me what a relative newbie can do with it in a little while..spending more time on your products rather than your "Promo" images would reduce customer grief alot, is the only point im trying to make.

Posers default lights are: Light Red Green Blue Main- 200 206 193 Greenish, weak Right 223 150 97 Orange/Red, Saturated Left- 126 117 63 Yelly/Orange Saturated My standard lights are: Main- 250 247 245 Very Bright, slight Red Right 213 178 162 Strong, Redish Left- 100 106 142 Weak, blueish I use the left light as a back fill, the right light is rotated back enough to show some shadow detailing, the main light is normally off to the left of camera view and does most of the work. Anyone who is a serious photographer knows how much colored lights, or rather the color temperature of the lighting used can effect the photograph. You have to filter for the reddish sunlight in the evening, the bluish light at noon high up a moutain, not to mention the filtering to correct incadesent lighting for daylight film. Compared to the small differences in these, Poser's defaut lighting is very strongly colored indeed, and I gather some go much farther into colored lights than even that. I have no problem with that, but I question designing your textures around that kind of lighting. I've also seen many textures that seem to expect rather bright lighting too, far brighter than my standard lights, (which are brighter than the default Poser lights, bear in mind). I think the standard DAZ Victoria III texture sets and Anton's Make-up collections that match them are excellent, but rather dark, IMHO. I run all of them I use through a Photoshop Settings file, to lighten them and pump up the saturation a tad (normamly you have to increase saturation if you lighten, and visa versa). The settings files I use are in PoserPro's Free stuff, BTW. Anyway, I think kamilche opened a big can of worms! ;-)

"The answer to that is simple. Default poser lighting is crap and nothing is going to look good in it" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you!! and I see no reason for merchants to waste our limited store space posting Crappy unflattering rendersof our products to show how bad lighting can ruin a good composition . there are plenty of such renders in the galleries already that sums it up quite nicely. i think that postworking beyond painting some hair, brightness/contrast or adding a drop-shadow behind your character/object is shady. but a merchant should be able to exercise whatever skill they have in lighting, rendering, etc in their promos. working on a product for months and then slapping up a crappy render in the poser default lighting to make it look like a flat discolored mess isnt doing your product any justice, and is totally unfair to the merchant. part of the problem is that many merchants have other 3D apps - and theyre rendering their products in Max, Lightwave (cough Daz), Cinema4D, etc. whenever something is rendered in a non-poser app it should be clearly specified in the promos. if your product is going to look different in P5 than it will for P4 users, then that should be specified as well. Offhand i could list a couple dozen merchants who i know are not rendering their promos in Poser yet nowhere do they specify this -- and you can bet your life that something rendered in Mental Ray, finalRender, renderman, brazil, etc is going to make a Poser render look like trash in comparison. i believe that if you are marketing a product for the poser community then all of your promos should be done in poser - the same medium in which the product will be used, and not in a professional 3D app. however if you lack the morality to do this then at least specify what app you rendered it in and have at least one promo rendered in the program youre marketing the product for. cheers, -gabriel

guess im finding this thread a little late :) dont let me interrupt the roaches :)

What does roach mean/imply in this context... I'm unfamiliar with the expression. Jim Burton thanks for discussing lighting.

Heheheh, I love those roach pictures. And that's a great shiny room!

As a follow up, I DID end up requesting my money back. I don't care that the textures can look good under certain proprietary lighting which they refuse to share, it needs to look good when rendered up on MY hardware with MY poses. Without the lighting, the guy is still purply-red and the girl is still green, so I can't use them.

As an aside - does anyone have any idea where I can find good, realistic, light-skin textures for Michael 3 or Vicky 3? I don't care if I have to spend an arm and a leg for them, I need them very badly.

As an aside - does anyone have any idea where I can find good, realistic, light-skin textures for Michael 3 or Vicky 3? Well, being that people's tastes are different, and being that a lot of us here don't use default lighting, it's really hard to make recommendations that will be to your taste. I don't see anything wrong with the textures that you returned. But you must have a particular look that you are going for. As an aside for myself, I think it's really unfortunate that you missed a lot of the points mentioned in this thread. With YOUR poses, even the same light sets that were used in the promo renders won't make the texture look the same, because the camera angle and pose will be different. It has nothing to do with the light set being "proprietary", or "secret." Rendered art is VERY dependent upon lighting, and the lighting setup will be different with every scene that you create.

In this context, roach means roach an insect as pictured, nothing more. Peng joked about a roach render and we had a little fun with roach renders. Hopefully it wasn't too much of a buzz kill for anyone. Ax the faeries if you must but please no OT in a Poser forum thread? That's heresy :-) Scurrying back into my dark corner before someone brings out the Raid.

Have you looked at the Daz original textures? I think the ones they had for V2 were pretty basic--maybe they ahve one for V3. I think what you're asking for is something that's colored like real skin using white lighting? I'm sure I'm flaunting my ignorance here but... I can see where poses, camera angle can all make a difference in the way a figure is going to be lit variations in shadows, etc. But if you're using white lights shouldn't the skin color remain the same? I think perhaps part of the problem, as Jim alluded to is that some textures are created in such a way that colored lighting is needed to get "natural" complexion coloring. In real life, people don't have greenish tinted skin unless they're sick. By the same token, people don't usually in places where the lights are blue, orange yellow etc. Colors are fine if you're going for an artistic effect but that's not exactly realism which is what some people want. IOW, if Vicky's standing in front of a temple on planet X, the sun may be red but in an office, the lights are predominantly white-in the generic sense.

Kamilche, I have never gone wrong with Ioli by Danae, here in the marketplace.

In real life, people don't have greenish tinted skin unless they're sick. Or Italian. My skin has an olive tint to it. Must be all those olives we eat. 8-)

i have olive skin but id hardly call myself 'green'.. geez, heh i think the problem may be a lot more simple: a lot of texturers need to calibrate their monitors.

To be honest, no render is ever really perfect right out of the box. You need to do at least a little post work. Even if it's just some levels adjustment or something. Kamilche, it's totally possible that the merchants used the same lights you did but took the scene into a paint program/image editor to "bring out" the colors/contrast a bit. It's just good rendering habit to do this. Perhaps that's why your attempts fell a little short? I don't know. With my models, I try to present them exactly the way they would appear on your screen but not everyone can nor should do this. We're trying to sell you a product, which means we want it to look as good as possible.

does anyone have any idea where I can find good, realistic, light-skin textures for Michael 3 or Vicky 3 That look good in Poser's default lighting? Nope. (Nothing does.) bonni

Teyon "Kamilche, it's totally possible that the merchants used the same lights you did but took the scene into a paint program/image editor to "bring out" the colors/contrast a bit." by editing it in a paint program, is post work, which in turn, creates false advertising by the merchant watch yourself :)

Teyon "Kamilche, it's totally possible that the merchants used the same lights you did but took the scene into a paint program/image editor to "bring out" the colors/contrast a bit." Heh, I SO can't use a product that requires that. I am rendering the body in 1014 frames, so I can't postwork anything. It has to look good in poser, or it isn't useful to me. I understand about olive skin tones, and if it was something that affected the whole body, I could work around it... but since it's on the shoulders and belly only, it makes it less useful to me.

Coming late to the party, me own opinions about Rhiannon's stuff is that what I bought so far is great. I do tend to play about with lights a lot and mostly make my own sets. Rhiannon's textures are nicely done, well balanced for colour and free of baked in specularity, so they render well under a variety of lighting conditions. Can't speak for the other merchant's stuff because I haven't bought any products, but I can assure you that I have no connection to either.

" strongly suggest that anyone who claims to be a merchant take the time to soak his words in. If poser merchants don't have the skills to make something look presentable under a decent set of available Poser lights and Firefly, then perhaps they shouldn't be selling anything for Poser?" I very strongly endorse this. Poser is capable of very presentable renders. Evern Poser 4.

"Poser is capable of very presentable renders. Evern Poser 4." agreed that poser (4 and 5) render engine isnt the best but it still can do some damn good work alot can agree poser isnt the easiest rendering/lighting it with everything else takes skill, any ad i see selling something for one program (poser) but has promos made in another program (lightwave/bryce) just tell me the merchant doesnt have the skill to do it in poser, and makes me think the product will also be low quality