LMK - In my favorite non-Poser app of choice, the low poly character is textured and subdivided. The subD character inherits the texture from the low poly. The low poly cage is carries the morphs and is animated (in real time) ; the subD character again inherits all topographical, translation / rotation changes - the subD character can be toggled on or off but mainly is only visible to the rendering engine. Overall this workflow speeds development time and ease on system resources. The rendered mesh is super smooth.

Quote - I would rather see instancing in Poser, rather than sub-d .

Would it be okay if you got neither?

Well.
Second thing in a month I return to Daz. (I sprang for the full, then saw the non LE version was... low poly as well and looks shit in Poser.
You can defend D|S as much as you like to me, I don't use it. It has issues on my PC and I'm done trying to get it running. Second machine that refuses to load it without crashing.

There is also the minor thing that this "Free" application only seems to produce those so much touted things... when you buy a ton of addons / plugins for it.

If a human figure is released in SubD... without a regular poly version... that's when we'll see the shit hit the fan.

"If a human figure is released in SubD... without a regular poly version... that's when we'll see the shit hit the fan."

I'm sure that's what they have in mind, and for games it's great, but I think most poser users will be horrendously dispointed by the lack of morphs, expressions, and detailing.

I don't see how that affects poser users one way or another, if DAZ release some low poly content intended for other apps.  THEY SELL CARARRA CONTENT, they have for quite some time, and that didn't mean DOOOOOOOM for Poser.

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=6091&_m=d

Both the Mill dragon and the eastern are two of my favorite poser dragons.. along with Majestic Dragon, and the Daz dragonfly...

This one was render in Carrara 6.1 Pro using translucency map on the wings and SSS with global illumination and indirect lighting.

ooh, he looks real! love esther

He looks good in that render, but the problem is that I use mainly Poser 7.
D|S won't even load on my Vista machine so I don't bother anymore. It's just not worth the hassle.

Now imagine they release M4 as a subD figure only.

I think Daz would have to barricade the doors because there would be natives with pitchforks on the way.
I'd be one of them...

Lets just say it would be an immensely stupid business decision if they did that, so lets hope they have a little brain matter left.

But isn't the dragon release in two formats so as to make almost everyone happy. A sub-d version and a standard version for Poser and other applications or am I wrong?

Since Poser Pro fully supporting normal maps, this might be the actual split we see between poser content, and Daz Studio content, with both camps using thier own advancements for content creation.

Hola,

I was just talking about mesh resolution changing in Poser. It may be unrelated or not of interest but a Poser figure can be rigged to manually change resolution depending on the needs/use.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2734569&page=1#message_3199088

Wierd, my last post didn't show up.

I had said that I was surprised that Ringo's image looked blocky as P7. I had thought Carrara would have SubD or smoothed it better. The image itself looks fine,just the blocky dragon. Will have to try it on my C6P when I have the time.

No, there is not a poser version of this dragon, daz is saying it works with poser 5+ but does point out it is a little to low poly for poser. But as all ofus have pointed out, it would be fine for distant shots and multi figure at a distant renders.

Which leaves Antons mesh changing. Would be fine IF there were other med/ high rez geometry,  but there is not unless you make them yourself.

Ergh, try the dragon in P7 with the smooth turned off of rthe wings and I still got the blotches that showed in Tashar59's post.

On the other hand, I did a little test image where I turned the Dragon into a bipedal style no wings -like the Millenium Dragonfolk) and rendered it with an M3RR in armour and clothes.  I rendered it with IBL AO and I think it is the fastest render I've ever done!

I'm going to tweak it a bit more (I never like default texture set-ups...), but I can see a few uses for this beasty.

I'm thinking that a displacement map might help round it out a bit too.  I'll have to play a little more.

Anton's post sounds intriguing, I'm goin to wonder over there and check that out.

Cheers!

I have the same problem. D/S just crashes. I have tried 3 separate versions of it over time, and I just hate it and it just hates my computers.  :(

Quote - He looks good in that render, but the problem is that I use mainly Poser 7.
D|S won't even load on my Vista machine so I don't bother anymore. It's just not worth the hassle.

Now imagine they release M4 as a subD figure only.

I think Daz would have to barricade the doors because there would be natives with pitchforks on the way.
I'd be one of them...

Lets just say it would be an immensely stupid business decision if they did that, so lets hope they have a little brain matter left.

Quote - But isn't the dragon release in two formats so as to make almost everyone happy. A sub-d version and a standard version for Poser and other applications or am I wrong?

Ringo, that's what I thought when I bought the full version - but it's the same mesh, same SubD version. The only difference are higher (I wouldn't call them high res, just higher res) textures and morphs - and it's $14 more (in the sale).

That's why there is such a lot of fuss over it. It wasn't released as a subD and a pumped up full version. It's SubD in both versions - and Poser doesn't like it.

Quote - Ergh, try the dragon in P7 with the smooth turned off of rthe wings and I still got the blotches that showed in Tashar59's post.

On the other hand, I did a little test image where I turned the Dragon into a bipedal style no wings -like the Millenium Dragonfolk) and rendered it with an M3RR in armour and clothes.  I rendered it with IBL AO and I think it is the fastest render I've ever done!

I'm going to tweak it a bit more (I never like default texture set-ups...), but I can see a few uses for this beasty.

I'm thinking that a displacement map might help round it out a bit too.  I'll have to play a little more.

Anton's post sounds intriguing, I'm goin to wonder over there and check that out.

Cheers!

Or you could export the model and into Zbrush and devide it as many times as you wish, send it to UVmapper and export a new texture map and You have a high poly dragon that you can import into poser pop the rig in and off you go. Of course you may have to do new morphs for it and play with the textures a bit, but hey its only a couple bucks and any model created by someone for a couple bucks is a steal.  Besides its fun sometimes to just experiment with a model and see what you come up with.

Quote - Or you could export the model and into Zbrush and devide it as many times as you wish.

I could... if Daz hadn't stiffed a lot of customers on the "deal" they had for ZBrush. So no, I can't go spending $600 on the program, but I would have bought it during the sale.Unfortunately I need to get paid and stupidly thought since the deal was advertised until the Monday at midnight, I'd have time to get it on the Monday.
It "Sold out" on the Sunday - with no warning that there was limited availability. If I'd known, I might have asked my other half to lend me enough cash, but since no one knew there was limited availability... well. I can't import it into ZBrush because I don't have ZBrush and I can't afford $600 which happens to be half my monthly salary.
Yes, I'm a bit bitter about that, as are many other people.

phantom3D, actually, that's a good idea that I hadn't really thought of.  Of course, i'll use Carrara instead, but the principal is the same.

The morphs might be a bit of a trick, but I think I can work something out there too.  I mean, I'll morph the Dragon into whatever shape I want first, then export it's obj, import sub divide to a nice number, then back into Poser add the rig.  I'll have to create some expression morphs for animation purposes, but I think this might be fun.

Silke I hear your plight.  I never knew that had happened.  Was the Zbrush sale only on physical orders?

Still, I wonder if one could use D/S to create and export the sub divided obj.  Well, those who can get it running on their systems anyway...

This hobby does lead to headaches...

Quote - > Quote - Or you could export the model and into Zbrush and devide it as many times as you wish.

...I can't import it into ZBrush because I don't have ZBrush and I can't afford $600 which happens to be half my monthly salary...

Wings3D has catmull-clark and doo-sabin subdivision. You could follow the above steps, substituting Wing3D in place of ZBrush. Wings can't do everything that ZBrush can by a long shot; but should be fine for simply subdividing a mesh...
http://wings3d.com/

EDIT
Or Blender
http://www.blender.org/

Quote - Was the Zbrush sale only on physical orders?

Well, it didn't say so, but apparently it was and there was no mention of limited supply.

Operaguy was one of the ones who had waited as well and added it to cart, and hit checkout and... "Sold out".
Imagine our surprise. Then their support people added insult to injury by telling people that they wouldn't be getting more stock because they weren't going to sell it again. Then someone else turned round and said they would - but never again at that price.
The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.
Add to that this SubD Dragon for which I've paid $15 and which turned out to be SubPar in Poser. That's why I'm hoping that Phantom's figures are going to be so darn good, he'll give Daz a run for their money. :)
I've already asked for a refund.
It's not good to have no direct competition. Companies tend to think they can get away with things... and the losers are the customers.

Hi Folks

Sub-D human figures are on the way!  Here's the link  http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=71525  If you would like to beta test them.  PM me here and I'll send you my e mail address.

Cheers

Pat

Connecting the bump map to a little displacement also, helps with the black patches on the wings and don't forget to check Backfacing forward on the render settings.

 I mentioned the subD in another app, wings3D and a tutorial on how to do it, twice in this thread.  Maybe I should have given that tutorial link? Nah, that would be to easy. ZBrush is an expensive way to do it it you don't have it. Any modeling app that you have will do the same thing.

"Thump, thump, thump... Is the mike on this time?" 

Hi Folks

I should mention I'm only doing the female figure.

Cheers

Pat

3/23/08

PhilC's toolbox of python scripts has a script that allows objects to be imported, and then quads can be subdivided into two triangles, and triangles can be subdivided into four triangles, polygons that are not quads or triangles will give an error message. Characters/figures will need to have their object file imported. Props work without being imported.

Does this qualify as subdivision as discused in this thread?

LMK

Nope.

Here's a good definition.  http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/page2.htm

I think there is some confusion as Daz has added both sub-D and LOD to Studio.  Just as with Poser, sub-d can be turned on to increase the apparent detail of a mesh at render time.  If they are using different techniques to do this, then different results can be expected.  It seems that for LOD, the multiple resolutions are seperate meshes that are a part of the same figure.  The idea of this is that you can pose and set up your scene with low res figures while the software will use the high res figures at render time.  Apparently it is possible though to export a figure at a chosen level of detail.  So if you exported (or only had) the medium res version of your figure, you could use the smoothing to approximate the higher res mesh.

Quote - Since Poser Pro fully supporting normal maps, this might be the actual split we see between poser content, and Daz Studio content, with both camps using thier own advancements for content creation.

Fully supporting?  Only if they show in the hardware accelerated viewport, I say.

Poser doesn't support Sub-D.  Poser uses trianglization to acheive smoothing.  Againhttp://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/page2.htm

See,  what Sub-D does is takes your polygons and creates a cage and within the cage it calculates subpolys.

What is crucial though to Sub-D modeling is edgelooping.

Now Youve done it !!!

You went and mentioned edge looping , and in  a Poser forum :(

:woot: :woot: :woot: :woot:

Quote - Poser doesn't support Sub-D.  Poser uses trianglization to acheive smoothing.  Againhttp://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/page2.htm

However Poser achieves smoothing, two things seem to be true of it.  One is that the fewer polys in the original object, the less the smooth object will look like it.  The other is that the smoothed object does indeed have more polys.  I've seen broomsticks turned into beachballs, so there is certainly something going on there.  I tried not to imply that it was the same algorithm as Studio's, but I'd certainly call it a method of subdivision as the rendered model has a higher poly count than the working model. 

Hi Markschum

Yes edgelooping is crucial even in polygon mode.  If you ever see a figure that doesn't have edgelooping chances are good the modeler either doesn't know what they are doing or they have " body bagged " someone else's figure.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_loops

Hi Moogal

Would you like to beta test Plain Jane?

Cheers

Pat

Hi Raven

What was the render time?

Cheers

Pat

Quote -

Do those wing fingers not bend at all? They look a bit "old school" Can you bend them?

This is what I mean?

I like the body though. Not a fan of the wings.

Quote - Hi Markschum

Yes edgelooping is crucial even in polygon mode. 

Pat

This is true, and has become painfully aparent to me.  The formation of the poly's actually have quite an effect on how the model deforms when it bends. I recently hooked up V4 to a rig that I am using on two models that I am building. And I noticed that her shoulder blades actually deformed better than my own models did with the same rig. And in studying V4's mesh I could see that it was the formation of the poly's themselves that gave the better deformation. While I had used edge looping in many other areas of my models I had not used them in the shoulder blades. So the painfull process of correcting my error.
Edge looping is a usefull practice for modelling, but you can easily over do it as well and the poly's add up very quickly that way.

Hi Phantom3D

Come on over,  I promise we won't bite.  http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=25

Cheers

Pat

You are correct it doesn't have SDS turn on in that render image. It turns out that the SDS sliders in the properties tray are not activated. But there is another way to apply the SDS just open the model in the Vertex modeler and in the VM use the SDS slider and you can see the geometry change.

Quote - Wierd, my last post didn't show up.

I had said that I was surprised that Ringo's image looked blocky as P7. I had thought Carrara would have SubD or smoothed it better. The image itself looks fine,just the blocky dragon. Will have to try it on my C6P when I have the time.

No, there is not a poser version of this dragon, daz is saying it works with poser 5+ but does point out it is a little to low poly for poser. But as all ofus have pointed out, it would be fine for distant shots and multi figure at a distant renders.

Which leaves Antons mesh changing. Would be fine IF there were other med/ high rez geometry,  but there is not unless you make them yourself.

*So ... I guess there is no possibility that Poser might actually support proper Catmull-Clark subdivision in the future?  And that DAZ's release of a subdivided model isn't an advancement that might propel similar innovations in Poser? That's the good thing about competition ... innovations on one side push similar innovations on the other. 

*I seriously doubt it, because I seriously doubt Smith Micro will do anything with Poser at all. It's starting to get awefully quiet around poser and staff seems to be very absent the last few months. No one is sharing anymore, CP is making very odd moves, Poser Pro release is delayed with months now. Poser releases always have been coming way too slow, while D/S is continually seeing new features and releases. By the time Poser will support proper Catmull-Clark, I doubt anyone will still be interested. By the time Poser 8 will be released, in a year or so, D/S will have caught up (with the rate it's going lately) and no one will be willing to pay for stuff then can be gained for free.

Just look at the Poser 5, 6 & 7 releases. The staff working on Poser sure can't be called innovative at all anymore and they're taking ages to release something new. The poser development team has become as ancient and slow as poser is.

I'm not saying D/S is perfect, but it sure is getting better and better each time and more and more interesting, I really can't say the same of poser at all. The differences between Poser 6 & 7 are so little that they could have released it (without the content) as a service pack for Poser 6. It took a year to do what? Adding to it that Smith Micro isn't known as the most innovative company either and if Smith Micro isn't going to move any time soon, they don't need to bother to move at all.

Not that Smith Micro even cares about Poser or it's users, they've already shown that. It's simple..... Poser 7 Pro will be released. It will be full of bugs, errors and trouble as usual. Smith Micro will start to realize that Poser needs a lot of investment, staff and time to maintain and they will abandon it. Poser will be added to the other obsolete and outdated software Smith Micro owns. Mind you, they're not even going to sell poser to some other company at all, they're going to sell it dirt cheap in the end, since the Poser pricing is way out of their current pricing range and just doesn't fit in. They even haven't bothered to add Poser and all the other applications to their main website to this day.

Don't get me wrong, I love Poser and I use it weekly, if not daily. But I'm not going to support an application if the company owning it treats it customers like little children and at times even like dirt and are clearly showing by their behaviour that they could care less about their customers. I can't be bothered to invest money into an application that's just not worth the money asked for anymore. The last 2 version they've dared to ask customers full price for minor updates. For years I've been a loyal customer and I'm not even getting a decent upgrade price. I'm not going to invest into an application that releases 'new' features that are 5 years overdue.

I'm keeping my money in my pocket and I'm going to sit on the fence to see what will happen and see if Smith Micro and the old E-Frontier staff is going to make a move to gain the customers trust once again. If not, I'll buy something else with my money, for now (and for years too come) I can live with Poser 6. Gotten used to the shortcomings and bugs, worked my way around them. At the moment the signals I'm getting from Smith Micro is telling me not to trust them at all. E-Frontier was pretty bad (besided for a few good staff members in it of which a number left the company just before Smith Micro took over), but Smith Micro seems to be even worse and I can't be bothered to support them, if they can't be bothered to take their customers serious.

Btw..... Sorry that I'm a bit late in replying, I was away.

aeilkema, stop it!  You're just verbalising my fears!

I once worked for a company that was sold to a larger company.  I saw from the inside the worst of what happens.  New owners having no clue about what needs to be done.  They want to invest no money and have the company just make money.  Actually, the first step is to "clean house"  Why does cost cutting always include layoffs?

Whenever anything I support changes hands, I am always reminded of those years...

Anyway, a bit off topic....

Anton  Yeah, the wings leave a lot to be desired.  When they fold up... Agh, I just can't even describe how aweful they look.  Like robot wings or something...

Doom and Gloom,

 *D/S will have caught up (with the rate it's going lately) and no one will be willing to pay for stuff then can be gained for free.

*Is Daz going to give away all the Plug ins?

Anton  Yeah, the wings leave a lot to be desired.  When they fold up... Agh, I just can't even describe how aweful they look.  Like robot wings or something...

I checked the model out breifly and from what I can see it looks like you can easily add a bone or two to each of the fingers of the wings and get lots more controle over them.  But that's only if there are enough poly's in the wings to get some folding going too.

phantom3D

*aeilkema, stop it!  You're just verbalising my fears!

I once worked for a company that was sold to a larger company.  I saw from the inside the worst of what happens.  New owners having no clue about what needs to be done.  They want to invest no money and have the company just make money.  Actually, the first step is to "clean house"  Why does cost cutting always include layoffs?

Whenever anything I support changes hands, I am always reminded of those years...

Anyway, a bit off topic....

*Sorry to be off topic also.... I know how you feel, same thing happened to me and to make it worst, it's happening all over again at the company I work at part-time (for over 3 years by now) at the moment. A year ago I was told I wasn't needed at the office anymore, but I didn't have to leave the company, the could arranfe a secondment for me. So I arranged a secondment at a local high school, been working there as a teacher for over a year now, lot's of fun, more fun then being at the office. 2 weeks ago, I've been told I'm now on the list of people who need to leave the company, but if I'm lucky this time, the high school I'm working at will hire me instead.

Due to some mistakes in managment the company is doing badly now and the employees pay the price for it, while the managers making the mistakes are still left in position, having nothing to fear. I hate situations like this.