Hi all,

I have put a very small paper up on sharecg.
http://www.sharecg.com/v/22750/tutorial/modelling-for-Poser

This is a short notes with example pics and obj files showing the smoothing issue in Poser for things like cylinders , and how multi-sidedd polygons may be misinterpreted by Poser.

Your link has a space between the 'http://' and the 'www' so it wont work. And yes, thanks a lot for the tute :)

Attached Link: http://www.sharecg.com/v/22750/tutorial/modelling-for-Poser

But, this link will. ...............

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Good start and thank you for providing this to the community. Several questions could be explored in more depth, however. For instance; how well does Poser's smoothing algorithm smooth a curved edge, that is, the part of an edge that shows in profile or that casts a shadow? Another item I've encountered is the "hoover" effect, where a long thin cylinder will balloon like a vacuum-cleaner bag. This can happen even if the cylinder is uncapped. An extra edge loop or two can sometimes stop it.

Quote - Good start and thank you for providing this to the community. Several questions could be explored in more depth, however. For instance; how well does Poser's smoothing algorithm smooth a curved edge, that is, the part of an edge that shows in profile or that casts a shadow? Another item I've encountered is the "hoover" effect, where a long thin cylinder will balloon like a vacuum-cleaner bag. This can happen even if the cylinder is uncapped. An extra edge loop or two can sometimes stop it.

re: ballooning and vacuum cleaner bags

On the Object "Properties" you might try changing the "Crease Angle."

Just a thought. ... ;=]

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

or turn off 'smooth polygons' in the render options...

yes , all work, Poser 7 made it much easier . I havent seen balloning myself unless there was an endcap , I'm a bit curious about the mechanism that causes it .

I dont like turning smoothing off altogether because I rely on it a bit to keep the poly counts down.

Interesting that the people who have looked at it are the people who need the advice least :)

Don't worry,  be happy (?).  It is usually the techies who jump on technical discourses first.  This is good as it tests the meat of your discussion.  Then eventually you will get those who are wanting more information from less experience.  Give it time.

kuroyume0161 so true. It was the same for my last tutorial. It was the techies that cought a couple of errors, from not proof reading first, that I had to fix. Then everyone else started reading it. LOL

But that's a good thing.

to stop balooning, split the vertices using uvmapper pro.

Thanks for the help, but I am familiar with the pros and cons of the ballooning effect.  I believe that the cylinder "vacuum cleaner bag" effect is related, but it is NOT solved by splitting faces or by micro-bevels; it exists for long thin cylinders (or, rather, cylinders made of up long polygons).

I have not experimented yet with changing the smoothing angle specifically to address these.  Turning off smoothing on the part in question of course works, but as a downside leads to a less smooth object.  But there, too, I really need to sit down with Poser and a stack of sample objects and determine just what the trade-offs are.  Is the smoothing Poser gives on a cylinder that advantageous?  Does Poser smoothing change the shadow cast by a smoothed object?

I also should have mentioned something about the micro-beveling.  You are right, markschum, that beveled edges may stop the marshmallow effect, but the effort Poser makes to render smooth surfaces will take those 45' angles down into the flat surfaces around them.  Sometimes it seems as if you need to add four edge loops around an edge to really get it the adjoining faces to render without artifacts.  Worse yet, I believe this is in the basic render engine and exists regardless of any smoothing settings.