There are a lot of good models out there for anyone interested in creating military, or semi-military, images. But some things are just getting repetitive. Do we need, for example, another M16? Can't we have a bit more choice than the US Army and WW2 Germany? It's good to see the De Espone range being converted to Poser. I know they have several different light machineguns, which will fill some gaps. Poserworld has a WW2 Russian uniform. I get the impression that the people who are rendering anything more than the basic rifleman are having to convert sometimes-expensive models intended for use with other software. Taking WW2 as an example, the ideal would be having available a rifle, submachinegun, light machinegun, and pistol. With the appropriate personal equipment. At least a box for belted MG ammunition. And at least one grenade. And don't forget the bayonet. Panko's sets are good, and his Vietnam sets come close to the ideal. But no light machineguns. No M60 for the Americans. It's a gap. Can't it be filled?

I agree, I'd also like to see some Napoleonic era uniforms and equipment too for either M3 or the G2 males!

hmm...with some tweaking, if there's a German M42 out there, it could become an M60 (a case of art imitating life)

I did an RPG-2 (the rocket, not the computer language) awhile back. Probably could redo it with more precision.

Sure, the more hardware, the merrier...;)

You will all be pleased to know that Panko has just finished the Modern Weapons 2 pack, and among our future projects is going to be squad weapons, like light machine guns, mortars, panzerfausts, etc. We are also working on a Vickers, Lewis, Spandau, etc, and the M60 is coming.

Can't we have a bit more choice than the US Army and WW2 Germany?
Well, we have Vietcong, and there are Japanese and Russian uniforms available as well.

Hope that helps, we are working as fast as we can, but these things take time.

No excuse Helgard, work faster or I'll get the whip to you!!!

Have you tried searching Turbosquid?  Set max price to zero and search in Weapons and armor. There's a Maya Mossberg 500 on the first page, a max WWII Thhompson on the second, a 3ds gunpack on th ethird page, a bunch of nicely detailed 3ds guns by BombshellDesign on the fifth, and many more. It's a mixed bag and most aren't maximized for Poser. It's probably the greatest variety of freebies available.

I have shrinkwrapped copies of actual CAD VRML weapon files if somebody would be willing to poserize them, and provide them free to the community, for the M16a4, M2, M203, M240, M4, M9 bayonet, M9 pistol, MK19, and MK64 mount. Shrinkwrapped means there are no gun part internals and a legal position has already been rendered that these files can be distributed because they only represent the external configurations of the weapons.  When converted to Obj format, these files can be 10 Mb and larger. There are no textures.

For Napoleonic uniforms, a little would go a surprisingly long way, since a lot of the details of infantry uniforms were common to many armies, including opposing ones, at least during the latter stages of the Wars.   A basic French infantry uniform, if available, could be pretty easily converted to Russian, Prussian, Austrian, Dutch, or Spanish, I should think.   British would do for Portuguese (same design, different colour) and for US (ditto).   The cheeky Yanks invaded Canada in 1812 with "Made in England" labels on their uniforms.  

Cavalry uniforms were a lot more elaborate than infantry, but again, a lot of details were very widespread.   Prussian and British light cavalry clashed at Waterloo, apparently because they saw each other's blue uniforms and assumed they were facing the French (intriguing failure of logic, there).

The actual equipment, to be accurate, would be the hardest part.   One musket does look pretty much like another, but they did vary from army to army, while swords varied from infantry to cavalry and from light to heavy cavalry.

Of course, the wars did go on a grotesquely long time, from Valmy to Waterloo, and every army's uniforms did evolve extensively within that period, as much on account of fashion as from practical considerations.    Headgear, in particular, changed a great deal.

On campaign, soldiers would generally keep their caps wrapped up, to protect them from the elements.   Uniforms would fray and replacing items was dependent on the efficiency of the supply chain.   In one Prussian unit in 1815 there were six different styles of uniform being worn.   There's also the story of Wellington, in the Peninsula, seeing a bunch of shifty-looking brigands shambling along the dusty road:

Duke:  "Who the devil are those fellows?"
Aide:  "That's your Rifle Regiment, Sir."

Yes, the Peninsula campaign is particularly interesting, I would love to have stuff from that era!!

Can anyone say what it is ?  I know :) 

Looks like a Bomb disposal guys outfit!!

Looks like a Bomb disposal guys outfit!!
Nope.

Alan Aldas Hazmat suit!!

All my attempts at modelling end up looking pretty much like that.

Is it a Old-style diving suit? Thanks for the various suggestions. There are some good models on Turbo Squid, but awkwardly many are in 3DS MAX format. You can convert them with the demo version of that software, but the demo is time-limited. And it looks as though there might be a good M249 SAW in there--it's a 12.7 MB .max file, if anyone can check it out. (Googles) I see the M240 is the same basic gun as the FN MAG (I think I ran through some of this in another thread), also used by the British Army as the GPMG. But a coupld of versions of the M240 have different fittings. I am glad to hear that Panko and the Vanishing Point crew are onto this. I can be picky about some of their models, but they do good work. One suggestion: the Bren gun was reworked to 7.62mm NATO, most obvious differences being the magazine and flash-hider, and De Espona looks to have a .303 Bren Gun. Don't waste this chance.

It's a baby's gas mask.

Picture of it in use (via Google Images) -> http://www.derrycity.gov.uk/ww2/section1.htm

Renapd was doing a british napoleonic officer that could be used for various armies but that on hold at moment, and their is a napoleonic uniform available i used it.
Type kepi in free stuff and from download page will take you to chaps p4 British napoleonic, as i use various p4 figure stuff as uniforms, and have both phil c stuff and napoleon for m2 and currasier.
The advantage portuguese army had was that it was fully equipped by London and its organisation based on British tactics, as England gave so much money to various armies to fight against napoleon.
British national debt goes back before that as we kept dishing out the dosh to everyone, and would love to see uniforms from 1700 to 1760, though during 1 Jacobite punch up apart from English and scottish soldiers in Scotland fighting and, other parts world.
England had no soldiers in England so king had to hire German and Swiss mercenaries to guard England while all the English regiments fought in foreign fields.
You gota love mercenaries and best thing we ever did was burn the white house, as it looks much better all white
At least in renderositty and renderotica we can do art of Americans being stuffed unlike Hollywood that keeps changing beaten yanks for french.

The fixer got it right 1st :) 
Don't worry Morgano so do mine :)

Actually N.Rudock did - the idea was you shoved your baby in the helmet, tightened the draw strings and used the handle to pump air through the filter.

Downside was some of the filters contain asbestoes - usually the ones imported from Canada. So if the germans didn't get you, your allies did :)  

The one in the photo is in mint condition. on most found today the rubber hose is spilt (or cut deliberately), the acteate mask is cracked and the rear stand missing. I got lucky with mine - all complete bar a spilt hose and 60 years of dirt :) 

Re the debate about uniforms - Poserworld has some which could be modifed and don't forget EDW's BDU which does for most modern wars.   
   
 

I havce, in my time, been a bit of a uniforms geek--with my siblings it was a form of self defence--and the sort of conversion-by-paint (or texture-map) that will work on the sizes of model used by wargamers just isn't going to cut it on a foreground Poser figure. The Vietnam stuff from VP is good. I don't know the period well enough to say better than that, and if you're setting up a render you really ought to do some research of your own, but the basics are sound. It's that last little bit of realism where the hard work is. What I don't want to see is the Poser version of the movie, "The Battle of the Bulge", which put German markings on American tanks, and had the most treeless Ardennes you could imagine.

"The Battle of the Bulge" was a staggeringly bad film (and I speak from a position of some authority, as a member of a nation which may well lead the world in the creation of truly diabolical films).  

In September 1989, the BBC had the brilliant notion of prefacing its news reports with mock-up news reports on the early weks of WWII, as they might have appeared in September, 1939, if there had been television news reports back then.   The one war theatre of intense activity in September '39 was Poland, of course, and there isn't a huge amount of footage of the campaign, not surprisingly.   The 1989 BBC did, however, have access to reams of contemporary film of British and French troops "in action" (on manoeuvres, presumably), so they  used footage of the British to fill in where the commentary was referring to the Nazis (thanks, Beeb) and footage of the French to depict the Poles.

Conversion by paint can work in some contexts and I think that the Napoleonic era is one of them (within reason, of course).   You really can re-colour 1812 British/KGL to get 1812 US and 1812 Portuguese, because all those uniforms were made in the same English mills.   I suspect quite a lot of continental Europe either had to accept French manufacture, or, at least, was expected to conform with French patterns.   It was all part of the mutual blockades being conducted by GB and France.

As AntoniaTiger quite rightly says, though, that is not going to work for the twentieth century.   You can't stick 1967 Israeli into Photoshop and come out with 1956 Algiers, or 1943 Kursk.

A lot of 60 and 70 movies where made in places like Yugoslavaia and parts of Europe which liked (and needed) the money and still had lots of old WW2 kit.  Battlle of Britain & Von Ryans Express  - filmed in Spain. Israel the Big red One.   

Ok thats about saving money on a movie but sometimes reality is stranger than fiction. 

It's often held that Radar was a huge secret during WW2. Yet a wartime book published in 1943 called "Roof Over Britain " clearly discusses how this works (called radio location then) and this book was sold to the public. 

The new issue of Britan at War mag (#5) shows a german gun on a french chassis. 

Also it wasn't uncommon for german aircraft to be landed intact at british airfields - given RAF roundels and flown off for research. The germans also had some spitfires as well.

by some strange coincidence, someone in the Max gallery just posted an MG34...pretty good one. I dropped the hint to them to stop on by.

Once I've scanned it in. I'll be uploading the M16A1 "Operation and Preventive Maintenace Guide" - dated July 1st 1969 to freestuff.  

A word of caution this booklet is often found for sale at many sites - the chances of finding an original are probably rare. So don't get caught out like I did. 

On the subject of freebies - keep your eyes open for next weeks VP Newsletter.  
It will contain a link to my new easy to follow tutorial on using your own photos to create both a background and lighting sources in Vue 5 Infinite.  The resulting images avoid that blue-grey look common to HRDI and give a nicely photo-realistic look.       

The site, only known to me by the initials "MPD", is gone however (that's the bad news).

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=mertext

Some very nice models, but I preffer to use Panko's, because they have the poses to fit the guns to the figures.

I don't think so, the weapons were all freebies and available while MCD's store was open.

Daz has some maxim heavy machine guns ..versions of these  were pretty well used by the russians in WW2. . And I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the Browning .50  cal that is part of the add-ins that come with P7 ?
Personally - what I'd like to see is a good old-fashioned Gatling gun ??

Freyfaxi,

Personally - what I'd like to see is a good old-fashioned Gatling gun ?

I was at 3dcommune and downloaded one there.  Search for "gun".  It is by cooler.

Attached Link: http://www.sparkyworld.co.uk

Downloaded... If the file extension is changed to "cbz" it becomes easily readable with the free CDisplay program.

I made a Gatling gun once; not high poly or 100% accurate, but if you want it..;)