I'm thinking of buying the new Daz Millennium SubDragon which is on sale right now, but I'm wondering about this subdivision stuff.

Okay, I get the basics, the idea that you can dial up the polys for increased detail if the software supports it.  I guess my question is, how is this figure going to look in Poser?  Apparently it has less polys but if you use it in D/S 2.o you can dial those polys up.  Would Poser's Smoothing option give similiar or acceptable results?

In Daz going to start producing figs that look like video game characters when used in Poser, but that render fine in their own software?

Any thoughts would be great, thanks!

Poser's smoothing should help.. this feature might end up being nothing more then just Daz's version of poser smoothing.

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

I haven't installed D|S, but subdivision smoothing as it applies to carrara
involves both smoothing during render, to the desired level, and subdivision
of the quads into progressively smaller quads on conversion.  hence it may
be rather different than the poser 7 application (no variable levels, rendering only).

Info on DAZ|Studio Subdivision:

http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/new?&_m=d

From the sound of it - and I can't say for certain because I have not experimented with D|S 2.0 - it is proper Catmull-Clark subdivision.  Poser uses REYES polygon smoothing, which behaves QUITE differently when dealing with models that have a low polygon count.  For extremely high poly models, the two approaches show pretty similar results in my experience.  Without info on how the dragon is modeled it's hard to say how the model will behave in Poser, but - hell, it's only $1.50.  Hard to go wrong there.

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 In general, subdivisions are very cool, especially if your render engine supports render-time subD smoothing. Poser's smoothing appears to be more for smoothing normals (which gives the appearance of smooth surfaces but you may notice faceting if you study an alpha channel of said render) rather than smoothing faces.

No.

Posers smoothing makes a bit of a mess with it. Specially the wing membrane. The lack of a few polys in the right places. Every poser user knows what happens with those kind of models when smoothing is turned on.

I have been doing a lot of test renders with it right now. I have found that turning Off smoothing and checking backfaces cleans the mesh up but looks like a low rez model rendered in P4. Not sure how many remember what P4 renders looked like before smoothing, but pretty much the same as DS until this latest version.

If you have something else to render in like Vue, carrara, Modo or any software that can sub divide it looks fine.

I can post some renders to show what I'm talking about.

This first one is with smoothing and no backfacing checked.

This one is with smoothing off and backfacing checked on. Much better but still not great. But OK for distant shots.

Now this one is done in Vue6I. I uped the smoothing to 100 and dynamic sub divide to 2. I will have to try the sub at a higher number some time later.

You can see the better render of the mesh. I have not done the Modo one yet but I'm sure it will look evern better because it can do better sub dividing.

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER IMAGE.

Thanks for the images. I was still debating if I should get it or not, but I'll pass since it looks terrible in Poser.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

I have contacted Daz for a refund. I was happy when i saw this dragon, purchased it, transferred it in my runtime, played with it and wasn't happy with it. The model itself is nice but this is definately no dragon for Poser. I hope for Daz that they don't start to ignore the Poserusers or they will loose any clients imo.

If by my life or death I can protect you, I will!

Ah, thanks **Tashar59. ** I'm so torn with this thing because he looked so great in the promo renders, but my main appy is Poser and I do have the Millenium Dragon.  My problem is I didn't just get the LE version, I went all out and got the full version.  This will be the first thing I ever return to Daz

Having built subdivision into D/S they can now create models that will look like crap in Poser and great in Daz.  This gives them a huge market advantage.  Imagine if M4 is a sub-d character mesh.

Maybe it is time for me to suck it up and learn D/S... or Carrara.  I fear Poser's days might be numbered....

Not to start a potential argument...but, really, WHY is it a bad thing for a company to sell models DESIGNED to be used in THEIR software?  They've been selling Dynamic clothing (Poser only, anyone) for a couple years now.  I don't see it as a bad thing that they add D|S optimized products to their repertoire.

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It's not at all unreasonable, and in fact it makes that item much more interesting if one wants to export to a foreign app for rendering; Poser's approach to polygon smoothing requires funky modeling habits when working with low-polygon items, as this dragon appears to be, and while this particular version may not work too well with Poser, there are other versions of the dragon work fine with it - while this new one should work substantially better in Cararra, Cinema, or any big dog renderer that you might export to (lower polygon count).

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Personally I cannot justify spending the money on a new dragon.  Even with PC discount it is not worth it if it won't render right in Poser and since I cannot get D|S 2 to install correctly. I have way to many dragons in my runtime that I don't even use.

Poserverse The New Home for NYGUY's Freebies

Who needs a new dragon anyway? Did a quick count in my runtimes and I've counted over 10 dragons. Honestly, all they release at DAZ lately is stuff we all have tons of already. Dragons.... dinosaurs, dresses, temples, man, I've got loads of those, how much does DAZ think i need of those? is any store releasing anything new, innovative and interesting these days? All I see is the same stuff over and over again.

*It's not at all unreasonable, and in fact it makes that item much more interesting if one wants to export to a foreign app for rendering; Poser's approach to polygon smoothing requires funky modeling habits when working with low-polygon items, as this dragon appears to be, and while this particular version may not work too well with Poser, there are other versions of the dragon work fine with it - while this new one should work substantially better in Cararra, Cinema, or any big dog renderer that you might export to (lower polygon count).

*That's the whole point. You may have noticed that DAZ wants to tap into a new market, the game design market. To do so, they need to move away from the old high poly stuff and come down to the level the game designer is at. SubD is a move into that direction and I'm sure we will see more of those kind of models released. They're not geared at the poser community at all, they're setting the stage to move to a new market. Once DAZ tapped into that market succesfully, they don't need poser users anymore to sustain their business. At that time D/S users and game designers will provide enough income for DAZ to finally break with Poser.
 
The only bad side of the coin for poser users is that once DAZ accomplishes this and completely drops Poser support (which is just a matter of time), Poser will go into oblivion and the final curtain for poser will fall. Poser's main right of exsistance, how crude it may be, is DAZ figures being compatible with Poser. Once DAZ pulls the plug, it's lights out for Poser. The G2 figures (or any other non-DAZ figures) do not have a large enough customer base to support the survival of Poser.

Personally, I don't really care. I don't use G2 figures, I dislike Appolo, have nothing with V4/A4 and could care less about the coming release of M4 or any other DAZ figure. I'm still using the good old whole P4 - G1 range figures when needed. I'm still a fervent M1/V1-M3/V3 user. I've got David, Hiro, Stephanie, Aiko3, the Freak, Behomoth and more of these figures in my runtimes. I've got gigabyte after gigabyte of clothes, hair, shoes, textures and so on for them to keep me happy for years to come.

Which ever move anyone in the poser community makes is fine with me, I'm not following it, i'm not buying more stuff for figures.

The only thing which still interests me is new landscaping items for Poser, some interior and exterior items and a vehicle once in a while. That's where my money goes, but only if it's something new something innovative, like Cyllan's Terraformers - Altitudes, that's innovative stuff, something new. If only people would release more of this kind of interesting, innovative stuff, instead of the same old, I've seen it all before.

So, please DAZ go ahead, pull the plug and perhaps we will see a great new move because of the lurking thread and poser will once again gain my attention.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

So, please DAZ go ahead, pull the plug and perhaps we will see a great new move because of the lurking thread and poser will once again gain my attention.

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. 

That's where my money goes, but only if it's something new something innovative, like Cyllan's Terraformers - Altitudes, that's innovative stuff, something new.

So what you're saying is it's only innovative if it uses the same old technology? What about the innovations that drive improvements in products as a whole and move them forward?

To put it in perspecive ... there once was a day when there was NO such thing as a layered graphics image editor. Everything was done on one flat image. Then (if memory serves me correctly) a graphics app named Altimira Composer introduced layers and all that nifty stuff.  Other graphics apps couldn't use it at first. But then we saw similar features in Photoshop, Painter, Paint Shop Pro, and so on.

Sometimes you have to do something different to improve things in the long run.

(and yes, memory did serve me correctly ...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamira_Software

So what you're saying is it's only innovative if it uses the same old technology? What about the innovations that drive improvements in products as a whole and move them forward? <<<<

Thought I'd better add to this ... I am NOT implying that anyone who tries something new within the constraints of Poser's capabilities is not innovative.  That's something we don't have control over as content creators. We HAVE to create something that works in the programs we create content for ... and the innovations we try HAVE to work within what the software allows.

SOFTWARE innovations are a different matter indeed ... others have already posted in this thread that Poser currently handles smoothing differently than (say) DS or Carrara or Cinema 4D, or any other major 3D app. This is a feature that has ALREADY BEEN THERE for many other apps, but that was brought in as an option for our community by DAZ.  I'm glad to see it, too.

Quote - So ... I guess there is no possibility that Poser might actually support proper Catmull-Clark subdivision in the future? 

Since it won't benefit the enormous base of existing poser content, I very much doubt it...

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I hope that's not the case. It would be a very cool feature to add.

Well, it benefits very low poly content. For our "normal" stuff, it won't look much different at all.

The biggest advantage would be using very low poly content in multitudes, and smoothing them to look acceptable with the system.

And if you really want a huge orc horde bearing down in your renders, vue would be the best solution for the best quality.

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

Quote - > Quote - So ... I guess there is no possibility that Poser might actually support proper Catmull-Clark subdivision in the future? 

Since it won't benefit the enormous base of existing poser content, I very much doubt it...

I do not see why they would not. Adding a new method of smoothing does not affect existing content. DS draws on the same base of existing content, and they did add this method, so what's different for Poser?
Advantages are evident, especially when it comes to morphs that would only need to define the morphs for the original points.

It would have to be something individually enabled for each and every model, because a great number of low-poly Poser content models have had their edges broken so they'll render correctly with the aforementioned REYES polygon smoothing.  For those models, turning on Catmull-Clark subdivision makes them go nuts.  Modeling for Catmull-Clark subdivision requires specific techniques, you can't just subdivide any low-poly model and expect it to look right.  Cubes turn into spheres with Catmull-Clark subdivision.

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Well there is one advantage that Poser can use right now.

Let's say you want to create an image that has a whole horde of dragons flying around in the distant sky. Why load 10 instances of a 90000 polygon dragon (if you can), when you can load 10 14000 polygon dragons? That's the equivalent of one and a half of the high polygon ones.

And ... for those Poser users who have already purchased him ... turn on smoothing for everything BUT the wing parts (you can disable them in the Properties window). Here's the result.

Daz claim in the product Description that the sub-d Dragon works in Poser 5+.  I was curious to see if Poser smoothing would approximate the Daz subd option. From those renders it appears not, so Daz should be advertising that these models are Studio only.

Why say it's Studio only? Poser loads it, and as you can see above, you CAN use smoothing on the body ... the wings look better with it turned off, though.

You may not get the same results as you do in DAZ Studio or Carrara, but you get results.

thats the crux : *You may not get the same results as you do in DAZ Studio or Carrara, but you get results.

*a simple line on the product of :

'Results may vary outside of the Daz Studio Application' would have avoided alot of this bitterness thats been seen.*

I showed these images to show what it looks like NOW in Poser. Not what might be in the future. I have been accused of setting it up to look bad on those first 2 images at Daz on purpose.  I used a light color light so it would show the results better. Guess I am supose to use dark lighting. LOL.

I also made sure to post an image rendered in something else, Vue in this case, to show that the dragon can look good used in other software that can do subD. They only used that at Daz to fuel the set up conspiracy of the first 2 images.

I don't see anything wrong with Daz going in this direction and I agree that maybe it will help Poser get the same thing. Good thing for all of us. This extreme high rez mesh is getting a bit out of hand I think. I like using my RR mil figures. Best of both world. Low enough poly to work play nice in most systems but look great with Poser smoothing. I remember Daz saying they were going to have a low rez V4 but now after Dan Farrs replies at the MM thread, I think it will be the same as the Dragon.

As I pointed out I was answering the first question but made sure that it was understood that it looked fine in other sofotware. If your like me that poses and creates the scene in poser and then exports to another app, it may be something you can use.

No consiracy here. or is there.

I just remembered I do have a Wings3D tutorial on this forum that shows how to subD a figure. It was for Teri Yuki 1 before they made the highrez version. You could always go that rout and Then use the Dragon in Poser.

^^ as you say, I think all the excitement here is a bit misdirected.  This is just one version of a model that DAZ has had for sale for a long time, it's not like they're discontinuing all poser-type content.

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Subdivision in Poser would be a GREAT idea. One area where Poser has a strong lead on DAZ|Studio is animation and dynamic cloth and hair, and those calculations are orders of magnitude faster when used on low poly models. Calculate in low poly, render in high poly, best of both worlds!
I hope SM reasons the same way.

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I can get Poser to load a subd-mesh made in Lightwave. It will look like a big pile of polygons . Daz should have the courage to say that this model will NOT produce decent results in Poser , or include instructions in the readme of what needs to be done . A subd cage may not be a usable model unless subdivided because it is NOT a mesh in its own right, its a CONTROL mesh for the subdivision surface .

3/20/08

Seeing that some folks think I buy figures and applications just to complain about the bugs and flaws, for $1.05 this new subDragon seems to have a phenominal price to whine ratio. Maybe I should get it while the complaints are still flying.

It looks like the more expensive version has more morphs and textures. Is that about right?

Actually this is a fascinating topic, and I would love to see some more discussion on it. It sounds like it would have great potential for future versions of Poser. One irritating characteristic of Poser is that as one adds more figures, props and complexity to a scene, the graphics interface slows down. This subdivision technology sounds as if it could address that problem, as well as other things.

Thanks Tarsha59 and Deceey for the renders. With sellective use of smoothing, I like the looks of that dragon just fine.

LMK

Probably edited for spelling, grammer, punctuation, or typos.

Seeing that some folks think I buy figures and applications just to complain about the bugs and flaws, for $1.05 this new subDragon seems to have a phenominal price to whine ratio. <<<<

Indeed!   LOL

Actually, I hope that DAZ will release more subD figures and objects. I like to fill my scenes, and as it is right now I'm constrained by the 4 GB limit of Poser. Most of my Poser scenes have to be stripped down until they render, even after reducing texture map resolution and replacing texture maps by pure procedurals wherever possible.
I'd especially like subD bushes and trees.

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3/20/08

svdl:

Are there any subD figures (trees and bushes) that are cheap or free that one could play with?

LMK

Probably edited for spelling, grammer, punctuation, or typos.

The extra texture in the full bundle is the same body texture as the first but with some white lines painted on it. If you look very close at my images you will notice some faint white lines. I thought that was a bit cheep and sleasy for hyping 2 textures and it's only the body map that is the second texture. You still use the same one head map.

You do get all the morphs and poses. The FBM's are pretty intersting because it changes the dragon to 5 complete different dragons.

Just a quick thanks to Deecey for your render and thoughts.  I've decided to keep the Dragon (I did pick up the more expensive verson.)  He might do fine in background renders and he will work nicely in Carrara and D/S, both of which I have and just need to sit down and master.

My only complaint with the whole one application vs another is the learning curve.  I've spent years learning the nuances of Poser.  I love the Material Room and have learned a workflow to get the best results from this piece of software.  As time marches on and things change (which is inevitable) I see that I really have to start all over again and learn these things again.

All the power to Daz if they can gain a market advantage, as someone pointed out, Poser depends heavily on Daz and if they can't keep up, well...

And even better if competition drives improvements.  This is idealogy behind free enterprise, isn't it?

Thanks all.

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

...and I spend most of my time in Poser trying to prevent smoothing...;) 'least on my stuff...;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

um it was too much to expect I guess...
sub-d is not smoothing
and a sub-d mesh will look terrible when "smoothed" with poser cause poser smoothing is not sub-d
Daz studio has sub-d to a certain extent

sub-d was invented by pixar to allow a low poly "control" mesh with a much more detailed and subdivided mesh on top avaialble at rendertime. So you animate and work with a low polygon mesh and then render a high poly mesh.

daz studio does this in a very clumsy way. But at least it has sub-d.

this sub-d dragon will look terrible no matter what you do with it in poser.
unless you have access to the high poly smoothed mesh - it will look chunky and low poly - cause thats what sub-d is all about.
Raj

..and I spend most of my time in Poser trying to prevent smoothing...;) 'least on my stuff...;)  <<<

The way it should be handled is to "dial in" the level of subdivision you want to use. (Most apps do it this way). If you don't want smoothing, dial in 0. If you do, you dial in the level of subdivision.

Each level up divides each side of a polygon in half (or looking at it another way, one four-sided polygon would become four four-sided polygons when subdivided once).

Taking a 1500 polygon model made of all four-sided polygons  ...

Subdivided one level it looks like it's 6000 polygons (1500X4)
Subdivided two levels it looks like it's 24000 polygons (1500 x 4 x 4)
Subdivided three levels it looks like it's 96000 polygons (1500 x 4 x 4 x 4)

In actuality, the cage model is still 1500 polygons. But you can make it look like more when you render it with "true" subdivision smoothing. And the nice thing about it is, you can increase or decrease the smoothing as needed for your renders. If you don't want to smooth something that is far from the camera you don't have to. Closer to the camera? Yeah, dial it up.

3/20/08

And a similarly understandable explaination if instancing would be...what?

LMK

Probably edited for spelling, grammer, punctuation, or typos.

"Instancing" would mean that the software stores the data relating to an object only once ... and then keeps track of the number of times the same object is used in the scene.

It's a good idea if you want to use a lot of the same content in a scene, but doesn't address conserving memory if you have a 100,000 polygon character that's wearing 300,000 polygons worth of high resolution clothing, fighting a different character with an entirely different set of clothing that is 300,000 polygons.

In the long run, subd would be a better solution than instancing, IMHO.  Both would be even nicer. LOL

Quote - He might do fine in background renders and he will work nicely in Carrara and D/S, both of which I have and just need to sit down and master.

If you want to use it in poser, you can always use one of the free modelers to subdivide it a few times. This will give you the exact same results as using SubDs, though you will need to pose it first cause the process will screw up any morphs and rigging it may have.

Instancing works great for a group of marching soldiers at midrange or long distance, for example. Close range wouldn't work, you'd immediately see that they're all identical.

A really smart instancing algorithm can introduce variations per instance. Even better, if the geometry can be made procedurally, you can vary some input parameters per instance. Vue uses this for ecosystems of plants and rocks - those are instance of procedural geometries, and each rock/plant in an ecosystem is slightly different.

Vue 6 Infinte has both instancing AND sub-D. Then again, it's significantly more expensive than Poser...

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ghonma wrote: "If you want to use it in poser, you can always use one of the free modelers to subdivide it a few times. This will give you the exact same results as using SubDs, though you will need to pose it first cause the process will screw up any morphs and rigging it may have."

Not true. My tutorial to do just that proves that rigging is not screwed. You can also subD the figure with the morphs set to create the SubD morph. If there is an out of order vert problem, nothing UVMapper can't be used to correct/prevent it.

3/20/08

Isn't there a python script or two to subdivide polygons in Poser? Why wouldn't that work on a low poly figure?

LMK

Probably edited for spelling, grammer, punctuation, or typos.

Just because a model has been subdivided doesn;t mean it will look better. great examples some people have pointed out are VERY high poly models that don;t bend as well, or look as good as lower poly counterparts.

An excellent example that comes to mind, is the daz martian war machine. if you still have the original around, load it up and render it.

Then load up the improved rigging and optimised mesh version I did for daz, and render that.

The original model have almost 100,000 polys, and the optimised one had less then 26,000 if I recall.

Yet both look identical rendered.

Sub d is great gaming tech, for VERY low poly models to make them look better, but once you get past a certain poly count level, you don;t seem much (if any) improvement at all.

Also, if you do subdivide a model, bear in mind all the morphs are lost.

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

Python script for Catmull-Clark subdivision: can be done, the algorithm is fairly simple.
Adjusting existing morphs - can be done too in the same script, but takes quite a bit of programming (and it'll slow down the script by orders of magnitude...)

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 The entire subD workflow rules! Save system resources for your "hero" objects, using Level Of Detail for all others. I think the best think DAZ could do right now is to create low poly versions of all their characters. 

3/20/08

In an imaginable work-flow, could one subdivide a figure or prop that is already textured, positioned in a scene, morphed, and posed for the sake of improved rendering quality?

LMK

Probably edited for spelling, grammer, punctuation, or typos.

Not my taste in dragons.

I won't be parting with the Mil Dragon anytime too soon.

The sub dragon looks fugly if you ask me.

(MHO)

 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?

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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.

Silke

"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.

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

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.

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

ii quite like that torn membrane look in poser - it makes the dragon look like he's been through the wars. love esther PS O bought the mil 2 dragon bundle and am very happy with it, I got 2 dragons in it - eastern and a winged one. i got some beautiful poses from daio at daz

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I aim to update it about once a month.  Oh, and it's free!

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

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

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

MY ONLINE COMIC IS NOW LIVE

I aim to update it about once a month.  Oh, and it's free!

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.

Silke

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.

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

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

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

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.

Silke

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.

. 

A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

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.

Silke

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/

Friends don't let friends use booleans.

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.

Silke

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

Probably edited for spelling, grammer, punctuation, or typos.

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

Here's an example.  This is the start of Bebe the centaur.  Don't worry this isn't spam,  Bebe will be a freebie available for commercial renders.  Any ways,  this is her in polygon mode.  notice too the polygon count in the lower right hand corner.

Now here she is in Sub-D mode. Again,  notice the polygon count in the lower right hand corner.

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

I don't think the subD dragon looks too bad in Poser 7, and the tail and neck aren't that bad. Turning off smooth polys on the wings, checking normals forward in the material room for the wings and enabling 'remove backfacing polys' in the render settings helps too. I also set the crease angle to 90° on the feet. This is using the lo-res maps as I only got the LE version. Displacement maps would probably cover up blockiness even more.

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.

-Anton, creator of Apollo Maximus
"Conviction without truth is denial; Denial in the face of truth is concealment."

Over 100,000 Downloads....

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.

. 

A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

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.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

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

. 

A HOMELAND FOR POSER FINALLY

*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.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk