I was reading a thread and it mentioned a software called Quidam?

Supposedly it will rig figures for Poser?

Can anyone give some feedback on the software?

I have a hard time seeing what I'm doing in the Poser setup room.  I'm open to something easier to work in.

Cheers,
Lara

poser's really the only game in town.

I thought it was Obiwans' Jedi Master, but I could be wrong...;)

Quidam and Argile are two programs made by a company called N-Sided.

They are very useful for Poser, they help with texturing, morphing, etc, but they are not rigging for Poser programs. Do not dismiss these programs, but also do not expect them to replace Poser, they are not the same thing as Poser.

Argile is like a poor man's ZBrush, and at only 60 Euro it is relatively cheap and a good texturing and morphing program for Poser.

 Quidam is figure creation software. It has a sort of rudimentary rigging system which can be used in Max / Maya / C4D with the use of plugins (in Poser you'd still use the setup room). Unlike Poser, it has no animation capabilities, library of poses, and its material editor is similar to pre-Firefly Poser.

Its two great strengths are its ability to sculpt geometry with brushes and - the thing that sold me - its ability to export super low poly meshes, around 3000 polys. This is great if you use a program that supports vertex weight mapping and hierarchic subdivision surfaces.

The other great thing about Quidam/Argile is the ability to paint in 3D. This makes it easier to fix seams, to paint on edges, and to create the correct bump maps. Limited to bump, diffuse and transmaps, so not displacement as in ZBrush.

As a morph creator for Poser it is really good, especially for creating symmetrical morphs, something you cannot do in a program like Wings3D.

"Limited to bump, diffuse and transmaps, so not displacement as in ZBrush."

Please forgive me if I'm being totally obtuse, but why can't bump maps be used as displacement maps in Poser (assuming that the bump is not also applied)?

Cheers,
Diolma

Because thier affect while it might seems similar is quite different, and the way the map has to be created is also quite different.

Diolma,

A bump map can be used as a displacement map, and for simple things, like a rock wall or a tiled roof, this normally works, but for something like an organic creature or a human, the two have seperate functions. For example, for Vincent, the bump map does the tiny skin details, like pores, small scars, beard stubble, wrinkles, etc, and the displacement map does the actual deformation of the mesh for muscle groups, face shape, etc.

Also, a bump map is a greyscale image, with no limits to the parameters, white raises the bump, black depresses it.

A displacement map is very particular, the areas where you want no displacement must be exactly 50% grey. If you do this wrong, it can slpit the seams on a mesh, which bump mapping cannot do.

Googled their website.

www.n-sided.com/3D/quidam.php

It has Plug-ins that will save the animation skeletons for various apps, but, Poser isn't included on the list. 

Is there a way to make Poser setup easier to work in? 

I have a 21" flat monitor.  tweaked the hither setting.

Is there a way to do it via editing a text file?

Cheers,
Lara

Not unless you want to go insane. All the rigged poser content over all the years has all been rigged in poser. Might as well just dedicate some time to learning it,. like everyone else.

Once it "clicks" it actually isn't hard at all, but character rigging isn't the easiest of tasks in any application.

Take it from me, someone who couldnt for my life understand the setup room, now after a little fiddling in there here and then, have made me really to like the room - you can make new figure of those who exist, give more movement to cloth, remove parts you dont want :)

The biggest tips I can give you is; dont use the main camera, use right, left, top, back or front camera.

And just play around :)

Keep your eyes on the forum in the future a mesh that I have rerigged and regrouped is coming soon....:O

Phil Cooke has some very good concise video tutorials on Poser's setup room that take a lot of the mystery out:
http://www.philc.net/tutorialsIndex.htm

Quote - Phil Cooke has some very good concise video tutorials on Poser's setup room that take a lot of the mystery out:
http://www.philc.net/tutorialsIndex.htm

Thanks for the link.

The tips on order of rotation was new to me.  And the tutorial on bodyhandles was something I'd been hoping to find.

Cheers,
Lara