ok finnaly ready to make the plunge.......i wish to buy an enviroment creator....for making landscapes... what is the best one? has the most free addons maybe? why do you like it? what ones are available? & where? *********** the only one i know of is the microcosm at rdna how does it work? is it easy to use? does it render fairly fast? and what is the skydome? thanks netta

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"microcosm at rdna" I wonder about that product as well. I like to see pics of it being used (Not the samples on the product, but from other people), and how big they are. Soon as I see good examples then I also will go out and purchase.

I use Microcosm for almost all of my outdoor renders. Microcosm comes with 4 base environment figures: Microcosm round and square, and Macrocosm round and square. Each of those four come in several UV mapping varieties, from 1x1 tiled to 72x72 tiled. The higher numbers are particularly useful for the Macrocosms, a relatively small texture map will still give you sharp and fast renders. Sizes: Microcosm at 100% scale is about 3 meters in diameter, Macrocosm is much, much larger (I guess about 100 meters in diameter). Ease of use: pretty good. It uses INJ/REM poses for its morphs, and the supplied styles look nice. Lots of free addon styles and materials. The manual that comes with the product is clear and extensive. And for just about everything there's a MAT/MOR pose. One click and you're done. It's the most versatile environment product I know. Renders: Reasonable. Much depends on what you do with the textures - adding displacement will slow down renders but will increase detail. When using Poser 5/6, I recommend using polygon smoothing on the Macrocosm figures. A skydome is a half sphere turned inside out, so that the textures are displayed on the inside. Think of a snow globe, at an immense scale. Your figures, terrains, lights and cameras live INSIDE the snow globe. The main advantage is to be found in animation. When you animate the camera, the sky keeps on looking natural. Environment programs such as Vue and Bryce use skydomes (you can't turn them off) that limit the maximum size of the scene (to about several miles in diameter, it's not exactly a small snow globe!). Poser doesn't have a skydome by default, which means that the maximum dimension of a Poser scene is virtually unlimited. Microcosm does not come with a skydome. But RDNA has a free skydome that works well with Microcosm/Macrocosm, including several sky textures as MAT poses. The funny thing is, while polygon smoothing is a good idea for Macrocosm, it's NOT a good idea for the skydome. Hope this helps, Steven.

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thank you! it would seem that for my intended purpose of makine landscapes for placing natural props and buildings in would make rdn's microcosm my right choice, as i don't just want a background with a small front terrain(i already have several free ones of those)lol and the skydome is free?? where?? i thought i had to buy it too? netta

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Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=1061890&Start=37&Artist=FlyByNight&ByArtist=Yes

I'll have to agree with Steven. I bought the Microcosm mainly because I like to use water in my scenes and so far, for me, the Microcosm works best for that, and, for being able to morph terrains to fit the scene using either a preset or the dials.

The link is to one of my images using the Microcosm with a water texture tile and another with a sand and pebble tile below it so you can get a better idea of what can be done. The skydome is in RDNA's free stuff. With lots of free textures as well for both the dome and Microcosm.

Message edited on: 03/05/2006 17:26

FlyByNight

Oops, I'm mistaken. The stardome is free. Actually, it's easy to make a skydome yourself. Just take a Poser hires ball, fire up the grouping tool, select the top half of the polygons, invert them, and spawn a prop. Now scale it up by a big factor (5000% or so), drop to floor, export as .OBJ. Reimport and save to your props library. Voila, instant skydome. Download a couple of free sky textures and you're done.

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Another vote for MicroCosm from me. Its a pleasure to work with it. And... I do believe the Skydome is free, there have been 3 different versions of it; I think version 3 might be the only one still available. i can not locate it, but the site does list it as free (check the MicroCosm extras at RDNA freebies).

You might want to look at Carrara. It can import any Poser/Daz models from the Poser Run Time library with riggin intact. The models are easy to animate in Carrara.

Just click the free stuff link on the left, then the search link at the top of the page and type in sky dome. Scroll down to the bottom of the new page and you can download version 2.

FlyByNight

beautiful images flybynight!! wow! what gives them the ink look? netta

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Carrara is a LOT more expensive then Microcosm. It sounded like a quesion for buying poser content, not switching applications. I'd like to ut a vote in for Infinity cove 3 (it did more what I was hoping microcosm would do ), and I also like Daz's millenium environment. For non poser content, and an external application, I'd say Vue 5 infinite is the current champ, with it's ecosystems.

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

Yeah, sounds like a utility recommendation-request, rather than an application querie...and for that, Microcosm would seem to be the logical choice (seeing as it has so many expansion options available). However, if you WERE willing to venture a new interface, then consider Bryce 5.5 (at half-off the regular price). DAZ has been steadily increasing the interoperability of Poser/DAZstudio and Bryce...great terrains, water, skies, etc. AND a fabulous little rendering engine (if somewhat slow).

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For quick and easy world constuction, I've always thought that hmann's POSER 3D WORLDS KIT (now in version 2) was a masterpiece of simplicity. I've used it more than any other. It's sold right here in the Rendo marketplace, too. -jjsemp

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=209075&Start=1&Artist=leather%2Dguy&ByArtist=Yes

I've used both Microcosm and Poser 3D World kit, and both can give excellent results. I'd say Microcosm has a lot more options and add-ons, but the World Kit is easier to wrap your head around and get good results quickly and simply (depending on what you're working on). I've also had great results using many of TransPonds env sets as a starting point, swapping out some elements, and adding more. The "Runaways" pic in my gallery is one example - I started with the TP Dark Realm, and cusomized it a bit. 817