Hey guys...

Managed to get some great long guns, sabres and shields from those links steverc - thanks a lot for that. I'm not too sure about exact time periods and that, but these'll do a bottle-a-rum treat so they will me laddies. Well chuffed tis I...

Hi, Jo...

Love the pirate renders there. Wish I could get more than the one V4 figure into a scene without the inevitable systems SPLASH!!! Tried to add a whole pirate ship plus one V4 plus eight lights plus water plus skyscape today and Poser went asleep without me even touching the render button. Too much of a good thing methinks!!! Must organise my runtimes better some day...

I think the boots in that render were/are from a DAZ Pirate for V4 package called Pretty 3D in my main Poser 6 runtime - my DAZ content/installs prefer the main runtime it seems...

I think I can see the turn-overs on them boots in that render, so that would mean Pretty 3D package boots. However, I found they didn't reflect light so well, so I prefer Thigh-Boot for V4 by idler 168 myself, but these do not have the classical pirate boot turn-over at the tops. And because I'm liking my brave heroine pirates with pants on under the smart tunic whence on the high seas just now, am matting the legs with a Tabala rubber or latex material with the nodes played about with - thanks again with your help with tuts on nodes and stuff... Like the pants on em so they can merryly slap-a-the thighs without the unsightly bruisings resultings...

PS: Jo... Hope your's and Morkonan's Moonbase Outfit gets back on track some time...

Just a couple of wee test renders to wet ye old happetite ye dogs...

Ah, it's pretty3d's hifantasy pirat ... fine, fine, that boots didn't look as long in the promo picture.
Ok, I'm in the try to do such turn-overs as morphs to existing. Thats useful time by time.
But it's not as easy as I thought cause morphs are working linear on one hand and on the other it can't be done by magnets on the fly. So it must be done in a modeller by mirroring or such. And than it's not easy to beware the number of vertices. So my last try mixed up completely in poser ... but comes time comes morph ...

B.t.w. the grade of reflection should not depend on the model but more on the particular settings in the shader tree. So I see no reason why idler's fine boots should be more/better reflective than pretty3d's. :unsure:

Yeah, V4 is really a super lovely model for doing closeup's and portraits ... but she's overloaded with morphs and magnets, that also are needed in their clothings. And that's in whole is a real memory killer. In my first picture are 2 V4, 2 V3 and one P4 besides the tavern props and that's on the edge for my 2 gig memory.
So in crowded scenery I prefer mostly P4 Posette ... in the second pic are only P4 figures and thats ok with the details. Think I have to do a figure setup once with a P4 and a V4 with nearly similar body settings. So than in the distance could use P4 and for a closeup use V4 better. :rolleyes:

Hm, that latex shader is nice ... but are you sure that pirates are provided with that material ... I think cotton, wool and such materials have been more common in that times ...
Ok, latex might be good against salty sea water, but under caribean sun ... not the best smelling idea ... :ohmy:

Tomorrow I will post some poses for that gun's and rowing a boat ... all P4 but no problem with a little tweaking to use them with other figures. Have to redoe their png's first ... and than I will rework that sabber and belt, so next weekend it will be finished ... :closedeyes:

As far as the moonbase outfit is concerned ... I'm looking also for that but Morkonan seems to be inactive since december 20th ... might be on holidays or perhaps overloaded with ordinary daily work ... don'T know ... let's wait and see ... :sad:

Thought I'd include this render after adding this and many more Flintlock and similar type long guns/weapons to my library thanks to you guys!!! They are brilliant!!! Cheers!!!

Yeah I see what you mean about the shader tree settings, Jo. I haven't tried this with the High-Fantasy boots. But I also prefer the more crimpled look (especially around the ankle) added to the Thigh Boot for V4 - though with some expertise (give me a few years) this also can be adjusted.

I can't bring myself to use the P4 and P5 figures, after having V4 or Miki 2 etc to play around with. I'll have to persevere to do so though, as I can clearly see the sense as far as poly count goes. I'll have to get me a super computer one day - even if its just to have more fun (and more trouble free time) with CGI...

I think my heroine pirates did trade with either Amazonian native warriors and or Silvestre Diaz LaVega (Mr Tobacco himself) to utilise the newly aquired secret of latex use for their much needed watery protection, or high-class feelings wardrobe, or simply to run other pirates through as they stand with mouths agap whilst taking in the rather splended glimmer of the dastardly pirate 'ladies' leg wear...

........Or maybe I just love the shiny pants...

That saber and belt sounds great, Jo... I don't think I have a good weapons belt set-up for my pirates as yet.

Thanks lots for these links you guys...

AJ

Oh, that's bajonet on the gun is great ... it's somethere on my harddrive but seem's not to be in the library for now ...

B.t.w. the pose is well done ... have some similar in the package that's just posted to shareCG.
Pending for approval in the freestuff section but here is the direct link so long.
www.sharecg.com/v/31974/Poser/Gun-and-Rowing-poses

Though the Aurora boat makes a better pirate gig, I prefer the Avalon barge. The barge has a higher floor. If you push the Aurora boat into the sea correctly, to much sea is seen in the boat. You have to push it higher and then the waterline looks as if it's empty ... very nasty ...
So in images I have to prefer a low camera point not to have a look into the boat.
That's lots better with the avalon barge but it's not looking like a pirat boat ... indeed it's a other century ...

Ok, that shiny look of latex is much aprechiated ... but are you sure it's really latex and not only the normal shiny touch of pants whatever original material if been used for months on sea as a tablecloth ... :laugh:

Yeah, that was the point I was starting with the belt ... I have lots of swords, sabers, katanas and such things in library but there is no good belt for these. And the sword I have build is in a design not able to be putten into a scabbard ... so I needed a solution.
But I have to redo a little bit. Have read a other thread complaining about the absence of pistol holster's and/or knife holder at pirat belts. Think that man is right and so I will give the belt such things as morphable addendums. No big problem as it's mainly ready ... my only problem is UV mapping. That's my crucial point but for a belt no too big problem cause it will work with shader's only. So no big need for a texture map. Comes up this week ...

B.t.w. your right, the ruffles of idler's boot's are very well. Are you in need for such turn-overs at the top ??
It should be possible to make some as props to be parented at the boot's. I have seen such trick with some napoleonic curassier boot's and it worked well. So if in modeller I will give that a try. Might be it's not working with extrem posings but for normal standing, walking and so on should not bear too much problems. Let's see ... :rolleyes:

Thanks for the additional link, Jo...
...some really great poses you have there...
...which reminds me - my Poser keeps needing two (2) loads before opening and crashing more and more... MUST make more runtimes to lighten load on main download runtime... And just when I have all these amazing new pirate playthings to hand...

Oh that Avalon barge is really nice is it not! I have that - it renders well and cool shape too - even if somewhat out of time period with marauding men and gals of the highest of seas... But methinks my pirate gals/heroines have time travel awareness due to brief encounter with strange peoples from the skies above...

Yes! Come to thinks! That boot turn-up-over does indeed look more of the part...

Good luck with furthering the belt etc...

Hi paramount,

as you said "two loads" ... don't know if it is the same with P7 but P5 & P6 are loading lot's quicker at the second and following loads. They might have done something tricky to have some libs staying in memory for further loads not being there the first time.

You might have a look to your poser directory and especially to the temporary directory. After a crash nearly all bigger softwares are loosing some of their data in that places, which are normally been deleted with normal end. Ok, there are also software (like MS office) loosing such rubbish also with normal ending ... so to clean out temporary places from time to time is not a bad idea as such.

And have a look to the total space of the harddisk where your temporary directory is located.
Having to less there might be also a reason for crashes. Keep in mind that this is normally the drive where windows is growing it's swap file and the (all) software is placing some things on the fly. Poser for example will place there shadow maps and other temporarily used things.

This remembers me to a colleague who normally opened word, access with 3-5 db's and excel with at least 10 sheets beneath a host terminal, pdf reader and, and, and ... and then complained that normally after 2 hour's of work his pc crashed and all work was lost ... :cursing:
It was the time of Win-NT SP2 and he had read something about the multitasking features ... I don't know, I'm working with pc's since the time of intel 8086 and DOS and have had never a need for more than 2 DB's and one excel at a time ... so one can go over the top ...
After cleaning that users temp-dir I have found 16 gig more capacity ... with only a 120 gig harddrive in that puter, really not a bad result I think ... :laugh:

So if poser crashes it might be not only poser itself but windows is normally a big supporter in doing so.

But for sure a big library might be a problem. But normally only in the time starting up while reading it. But it should not be the main point for a crash.

Did you do some disk cleaning to resolve fragmentation from time to time ... this could help lot's and is also a typical reason for bad performance and/or crashing software.
Microsoft once had said NT (W2K, XP) doesn't need that opposite to DOS and Win9x ... but it's a real myth, told everytime with the beginning "once upon the time ..." ... but I have never found the princess in that saga ... only the frog ... :ohmy:

So ok, out again to kill some unused/overused vertices from the saber and belt ... glad that you love the poses. Now we are making a fine pirat's basic armament package ...

Hi all, so here we are again ...

Seem's she isn't the most accessible partner to discuss about cargo ownership ... :unsure:

Will have to fiddle a bit with some of the polygons aroud the belt holes near the buckles and have to change abit with the tie for the saber cause it's a bit to high positioned. I need to separat the mounting of the saber as a own group. For now it was part of the hip but that meaned that is was bending with the hip. And that isn't quite right with every movement of the left leg.
I will give this part a unconforming name, so it could be bend left/right according to the pose following more to gravity instead of figure motion.

The bag, pistol holster and knife sheath will become parented props. So some of them will need a bending morph too. But this will be better than making them a group in the CR2. More flexibility to arrange them later. Might be someone will carry the knife at the sash part of the belt instead at the hip.

Then it come to the CR2 and is needing some of V4's morphs, only basics like amazon, etc.

Ah, and I have to play around with that cuff's for the Thighboots ... and some MAT poses in total.

Ok, so in 2..3 days there might be more in freestuff ... stay tuned ...

B.t.w. if there is interest I could be persuaded to make a V3, V2 and P4 conversion ...

Hey, Jo, that's coming along great shipmate!!!

The belt/sash detail and material/s are quite delicious - and I'm loving that wee little pouch!!! V4 will be queen of the Caribbean Seas with this fine addition to any pirate outfit!!!

Good luck with next stage...

Ohh, that belt holes has been a real crux ... a total mess of polygons ... costs me complete yesterday to redo the 2 parts of belt completely.
Next time I should have an eye on that earlier in process.

That pouch was one of the easiest ... might be I give it a own belt later to have a separat lonestanding women's accessory.

Now going to rigg that ... and than create some boot cuff's. Should they be completely around or better with a V at the backside ... oh, possibly could be done by a morph, let's see.
The cuff as such isn't the problem, but I will be anxious to the behavior during movement. Could think that it works with not too extreme poses.

More to come shortly ...

While it's going to end winter and becoming springtime ... hopefully

... Vicky is willing to set sail and plunder some cargo vessels. Hurray ...

So she got her new belt and saber to fight against all (some :rolleyes: ) flags ... :scared:

While it is pending in freestuff approval here is the direct link to shareCG
www.sharecg.com/v/32190/Poser/V4---Pirate-Belt-and-Saber

It looks all very well, though the V4-bodymorphs in belt are not all satisfying ... some work well, others less ... but thats normal with having them transferred by program and not done manually. But manually is lot's of work and time ... but I think it's mostly well cause it's a stiff belt and not a comfortable evening dress ...

A readme with some useful explanations is inside the zip-file.

Ahh, I forgot, if Vicky comes back with lot's of plundered treasure chest's, don't hesitste to send me the nuggets, coin's and juwelry ... :sneaky:

So, now going to have a look for the cuff's of the pirate boot's ... stay tuned ...

Cheerio
Jo

Hey, Jo...

Well done on completing the V4 Pirate Belt and Saber...

It looks great...

I must join ShareCG so I can leave comments...

Brilliant...

Hey all,

as promised I did a trial with cuffs for the V4 ThighBoots ... and as suspected it didn't work well.

As you see the cuff (did only one roughly for the test) will fit exactly in default pose but as much as bending the knee, the thigh part of the boot is reacting to the joints. Thats correct and well done for the visual look and feel of reality.
But the parented prop (cuff) doesn't follow the same rules. It is not infuenced cause a prop is a static object and so we get a heavy poke through.

Ok, there might be some solutions, e.g. use the prop in clothsimulation or make it a character with same joint as the boot. But these are solutions not very feasible. As dynamic prop it needs a lot of fiddling in the clothroom for a somewhat tiny visual effect. And making it a character would bring big problem to have it staying with the boot cause to be influenced it needs to be conformed to V4, not conformed to the boot. And so there would be to characters with same start position but than following the v4 bends separately ... I'm not sure how long they will match.

So the efford to get this working is far much more then the outcome would be as there are cuffed boots in market ... and no bad ones ... on one hand and on other hand modelling a new one would also not been much more efford.

With a look to a cuffed boot, in this example from HighWaist outfit, it is seen that the cuff follows the same rules as the boot ... naturally, cause it's the same mesh. That doesn't happen with a character/prop combination.

Even if there are problems according to bigger bendings as seen at the cuff and the heel tip, these can be corrected easily.
For the cuff there is a discrepency directly at the border between thigh actor and shin actor. The joints for shin ar ok, but one of the joint values for including mesh area is set to small. So with heavier bends the mesh isn't influenced enough. But this could be changed in joint editor either on the fly for a given image only or with saving back to library in general.
Thoug I didn't test if that joint change will effect badly without such a big bend ... but I didn't save ... :biggrin:

Also at the tip of the heel it looks like the joint zone isn't big enough to influence completely, but also no big deal to have this fixed ...

So I have stopped the activities with the boot cuffs for now. If it's sometimes neccessary I might try to make a complete boot but not at the moment. Next week I'm a bit busy and then there are some unfinished/not fine tuned blades, which all together shall make up a morphing axe.
I'm rather bored with looking through dozends of axes for one specific if I need one.
So I decided to have lot's of versions in one character with alternate geometry ... works very fine.

Might come to freestuff next :woot: ... accordingly with a block ... there are so much pirates, muggers and bandits on the way :cursing: that poservers' justice might need some upgrade ... :scared:

Just thought you might like to see what's been 'appening Below Deck (mapps) with privateer/buccaneer V4 lately... Mind yer 'ead there lass...

Hey, Jo...

Well you certainly had a good go at this project... The cuff/s look terrific in that top image at top left corner... maybe is close to default position for V4 and or leg/foot?!?

Whilst up on deck the watch has 'appened across some rather nasty thin chaps looking for some easy spoils aboard ship.........no chance there methinks!!!

Take that you fathomless swab....

Chew on that me shipmate... maybe that'll teach you to grin and me whilst wearing such a filthy outfit...

Indeed the top left picture shows the default position. But than each bending will stretch the boots mesh differently and the cuff prop stays in same position relative to the boot but is not effected by any stretching ... and so each smallest angle will disturb the well looking startup position.

So, no chance to have that done in this way with acceptable effort.

I'm on this theme with the cuff's for a long time. Was looking for some sort of boot with a morph turning over the top to a cuffed position.
But coming closer to modelling and morphing I found that this is a really ambitious task. It can't be done with simply using one or magnets.

The problem is that the top part is mirrored down to it's end position and while turning over the top seam first goes down (y direction) and at the same time outside (x and z direction). So the single vertises are running in a circle from 0 to 180 degree. And this is not the behaviour magnets or morphs are working. They are linear straight forward.

Though it can be done. You have to divide the complete movement to some small movements.
As more precision is needed as more small steps are neccessary. So without having tried I think 10-15 degree by one step could be fine enougth. But this means at least 12-18 single mesh morphs that are combined to one big ERC morph.
Not to forget that the mesh has to be rather dense to have a smooth "roll down" effect. That means lot's of vertises to be moved by hand for each single morph.

And that was the point I stopped that project cause modelling that number (double for both legs) by hand was far to much work for only having this one nice effect.

And it's also not a task for a dynamic cloth cause these have to be singlesided normally. And that means with rolling down the inside comes out and poser will have problems with the coloring/texturing.

Huh, ok, there are differences between graphics fantasy world and the real outside existing world ... but on other hand isn't that also a good result ... though only philosophical and not to be rendered ... :laugh:

Though I'm not sure if that sword/rapier is the best weapon against skeleton warriors :scared: ... might be my morphing axe would be better to smash some skull's ... :thumbupboth:

And b.t.w. that dark red leather in the under deck scene is looking very well ... quite my taste ... :biggrin:

Quote - ...AJ

PS: Jo... Hope your's and Morkonan's Moonbase Outfit gets back on track some time...

I'm almost done. :) But, then again, I've been almost done for too long now, lol.

I was working on the additional stuff the other day and crashed and wiped my save file I was working on. I have bajillions of saves (I practice back-up early/often always) but it did wipe out a few hours of UV work. So, I got ticked off and took a break, made a spindle for someone in the Poser forum and had it crash again in the middle of that project, which again lost me some time when it blew my save file. (Crashing on saves lately.. I know what the bug is though so will avoid it.)

/sigh

Hi Morkonan...

Sorry to hear about your system crashes... Oddly enough I've been suffering the same thing so far this and most of last week. I've been blaming my over-burdened (bloated) poser Downloads runtime, and defraging etc, but it (P6) keeps crashing and needing up to four loads (start-ups) before I can use it. Deleting from the props library takes up to a minute for each item deleted (I need to get rid of possibly hundreds of items) and the inner mouth parts of any used characters remain in the default position as the character is moved from that spot. I also keep getting a: 'Increase the amount of memory allocated to Poser' warning/prompt/window (any ideas anyone) but am not sure how to do this!?!

I'm considering adding a punchbag to my study so as to enable me to unwind from time to time as each successive crash and freeze up hits either Poser or my system!!!

You'll get there evenutally, mate... All in good time I guess...

Quote -
Hi Morkonan...

Sorry to hear about your system crashes... Oddly enough I've been suffering the same thing so far this and most of last week. I've been blaming my over-burdened (bloated) poser Downloads runtime, and defraging etc, but it (P6) keeps crashing and needing up to four loads (start-ups) before I can use it. Deleting from the props library takes up to a minute for each item deleted (I need to get rid of possibly hundreds of items) and the inner mouth parts of any used characters remain in the default position as the character is moved from that spot. I also keep getting a: 'Increase the amount of memory allocated to Poser' warning/prompt/window (any ideas anyone) but am not sure how to do this!?!

I've had that happen from time to time. Usually, it's simply a memory problem. I'm really not sure how a bloated runtime effects poser except that it stores the menu information and monitor changes made to the menu items which forces it to refresh that info.

However, I haven't had to go through the restart procedure. That sounds like Poser is leaving cached info behind on crashes and then ends up reloading it when it restarts. Or, it could be leaving information stranded in memory that doesn't get dumped. You might be able to manually clear unused cache files by using a utility (easier) or deleting them manually (more difficult). There are also several memory scrubbing bits of freeware out there to clean out Ram-cached memory left behind by either memory leaks or crashed software, etc.. Your motherboard manufacturer might have one on their site and it's worth checking into. Sometimes, other programs can interfere with Poser as well. For instance, some Anti-virus products and firewalls may inadvertently block certain functions that Poser must have access to. Disabling them in the system tray may not always remove some of their security features.

Quote - I'm considering adding a punchbag to my study so as to enable me to unwind from time to time as each successive crash and freeze up hits either Poser or my system!!!

I'll do the same thing for Hexagon. Actually, I know what caused the two crashes I had yesterday (had another one during another project) and will avoid those in the future. But, all in all, I really like Hex so am not too put off by them.

Quote - You'll get there evenutally, mate... All in good time I guess... AJ

Time, the one thing in the Universe that we can never escape from yet can never get enough of. :)

Since I'm already behind on the other project... Why not get even more behind and do something relatively quickly!

These are for the free Pretty 3D Thigh boots in the Sexy Leather outfit (or whatever it's called). I don't have access to any other long boots that I can recall so, whipped these up. They're conforming, mapped, etc.. and seem to do fine in the poses I tried with them. I can add a couple of movement morphs in there as well with no problem. (Flare/forward/backward/etc)

But, are they long and big enough? Also, I don't know much about boot cuffs. :) Are they normally pointed? Do you want them pointed? Floppy? Do they have edge designs like a v-cutout or something? Anyway, take a look at these and let me know if you ...

A) Want them or can use them
B) Want them longer, shorter, bigger, floppier, pointed, notched, etc..

I'll texture them as well and see about a better texture/reflection map for P3D's boots. The P3D boots don't show up very well because there's simply no texture image on them to play with. No bump or reflection map I can see either. I can wrap up and package the cuffs sometime after lunch today. (I'm actually going to eat lunch today which is unusual for me.)

Hey Morkonan,

sad to hear about your system crashes.

As far as it's Hexagon it's a derivative of some probs that was also in AMAPI. I got Amapi 5 (??) a ten years back cause it was the only (semi-)professional modeler with a output option for the freeware POVray raytracer. That's up to today one of the best raytracing engines. But all for it has to be written as source code. And really, it's not my way to have things I see or want to see defined in values and vectors ... that must be done visually or it's a big trial and error experiment.

But on one side Amapi did that output but only as a triangle mesh instead using the POV-primitives, so changing small parts was not easy. And on other side I never became familiar with Amapi's (often prized) naturally workflow interface. I think in version 6 they offered then also a professional interface like Hexagon, C4D, etc.
So that was better but with each version I got sudden unreproducable crashes ... so I put it aside.

I also got Hexagon cause it was cheap. But build by the same developers I found lots of things I don't like also in Hexagon. For example the whole workflow with the mouse using different functions with right or left clicks and enter between is rather bumpy ... in my opinion. And it was mostly tricky to work with the mouse and the keyboard. I love to enter values for different functions and often you have to choose the number fields by mouse while function is active. And then the drawn line etc. is hiking over the complete desktop to the entry field.
So for modelling C4D is lots more precise in handling ... ok, ok, also lots more dollars ... although for american people it is much cheaper as for us european guys :cursing: ... up to 30% ... I don't know why
But Hexagon has some functionality in UV making which is really outstanding, e.g. that thing in making new seams and splitting with lines ... but as said before UV mapping isn't my best side. I struggle with that ... and the winner isn't defined up to this moment ...

As for all that pc, poser, etc. crashes I'm really surprized sometimes. I read a lot of such things in the forum but I never can understand. Ok, I'm a pro with pc's since the old DOS times but except the earlier Win31 times I never had that big problems with any pc neither in office nor at home. If there was problems they had been based on hardware ... often the expensive hardware of brand name products have been much more tricky as the cheap build system from the unknow dealer around the corner.
But since Win98 all is working like a charm ... normally. The only big deal might be the graphics card or better their drivers. Especially cause MS is having nearly no competence in graphics programming ... MS and graphics - two worlds collide or might be universes :sneaky:

So I'm with you in most cases memory is the problem. But it's not the problem if poser is crashing while starting ... with figures loaded in preview it might be a OGL flaw with graphics card driver and while rendering it's mostly a memory problem. But normally a big library doesn't shoot poser. It might slow down the start cause poser is reading the complete directory structure of the library plus the content of the last choosen folder. But this isn't very memory intensive, thats only pointer lists.

@paramount: for that starting problem, try to build one separat runtime as I mailed you and leave it empty or only one easy prop in it. If you are ending poser normally, make sure you are standing on that empty lib with your library pallet. Next time starting poser will read this structure and cause it's empty there should be no delay. If doing so and poser is crashing on start again then we will be sure it's not a problem with the library as such or it's volume.

And now for the cuff's ... Morkonan, they look great but that did my also. Did you try for example with bend knee's ? If that work I'm very interested in that cuff's.

And having a wish I would prefer cuff's with a outcut V at the back. While the overall length is well I would prefer a bigger height in the front and a lower height at the back. So that the boot looks diagonal at the top from front to back with the cuff unfolded. You know what I mean ?
In your actual model I would give them up to 1/3 to 1/4 of length more in front and up to 1/4 to 1/5 less at the back ... depends a bit how wide the V will be.

B.t.w. did you see that these boots have a bug in their CR2 ? The creator has hidden far to much dials in that figure. You are unable to do anything with them if not conformed to figure.
At the moment I use a python script to unhide neccessary dials on the fly but that's annoying, have to go into the CR2 next time and push the respective parameters to correct values.
Are you interested in a updated CR2 ?

Hope you had had a fine kunch ... for me it's time for late night diner now ... :biggrin:

Quote - Hey Morkonan, sad to hear about your system crashes. As far as it's Hexagon it's a derivative of some probs that was also in AMAPI. I got Amapi 5 (??) a ten years back cause it was the only (semi-)professional modeler with a output option for the freeware POVray raytracer. That's up to today one of the best raytracing engines. But all for it has to be written as source code. And really, it's not my way to have things I see or want to see defined in values and vectors ... that must be done visually or it's a big trial and error experiment.

I've used POVRay a few times and it's interesting to use. But, I do agree there are some drawbacks to implementation. The learning curve to get good quality results intuitively is pretty steep. I don't mind certain command line "like" functions but POVRay has too much going on there for my personal tastes. The GUI for rendering is fairly straightforward but, it takes a lot of work to get used to using it. As you said, there is very little in the way of visual feedback previewing and that is really needed. I haven't updated my version in a long time.

Quote - I also got Hexagon cause it was cheap. But build by the same developers I found lots of things I don't like also in Hexagon. For example the whole workflow with the mouse using different functions with right or left clicks and enter between is rather bumpy ... in my opinion. And it was mostly tricky to work with the mouse and the keyboard. I love to enter values for different functions and often you have to choose the number fields by mouse while function is active. And then the drawn line etc. is hiking over the complete desktop to the entry field.
So for modelling C4D is lots more precise in handling ... ok, ok, also lots more dollars ... although for american people it is much cheaper as for us european guys :cursing: ... up to 30% ... I don't know why

I work well using both hands but, I do agree that it is very annoying not to be able to enter certain values for functions and then, being forced to click on a field entry while a tool is active is very disconcerting. I do like Hex's overall interface and it is very, very intuitive. There's not much need to spend hours searching among nested menus and obscure commands. It's all laid out for you fairly easily. You can be modelling with Hex and using complex functions within a few minutes. Trying to do that with something like 3DS, admittedly a much more robust and commercialized engine, and you'd be lucky to get primitives modelled the way you wanted in the same amount of time.

Quote - But Hexagon has some functionality in UV making which is really outstanding, e.g. that thing in making new seams and splitting with lines ... but as said before UV mapping isn't my best side. I struggle with that ... and the winner isn't defined up to this moment ...

I guess I'm one of the few that actually enjoys UVMapping with Hex. However, my biggest complaint there is that one reason Hex has some great UV mapping tools is that you NEED them to make sense out of the initial projection maps that Hex first supplies you with for your object. I don't think Hexagon knows wtf it is doing on some projections and "pinning" doesn't seem to help much most of the time. Some better instructions there would be most helpful. If it didn't have some great tools to manipulate the UVs, that feature would be impossible to use otherwise.

Quote - As for all that pc, poser, etc. crashes I'm really surprized sometimes. I read a lot of such things in the forum but I never can understand.

Hex's overriding problem, IMO, is intercepting errors when the program is waiting for a particular procedure to be "Validated" by the user. Choosing other functions that may depend on the validation of a previous procedue will result in an error. The new function doesn't have anything to appy itself to because the object is still "in use" by a function that is still "open" and not Validated (closed/finished). Since it wasn't set up to be intercepted with a reminder to the user to "Validate" whatever process they had begun beforehand and are now finished with, Hexagon crashes.

Quote - So I'm with you in most cases memory is the problem. But it's not the problem if poser is crashing while starting ... with figures loaded in preview it might be a OGL flaw with graphics card driver and while rendering it's mostly a memory problem. But normally a big library doesn't shoot poser. It might slow down the start cause poser is reading the complete directory structure of the library plus the content of the last choosen folder. But this isn't very memory intensive, thats only pointer lists.

I agree. But, a previous crash could compound the problem, couldn't it? If unassigned instruction sets are running around in ram or still in Poser's old cache and Poser restarts and loads those instead of ignoring or flushing them, would that cause continued problems?

Quote - @paramount: for that starting problem, try to build one separat runtime as I mailed you and leave it empty or only one easy prop in it. If you are ending poser normally, make sure you are standing on that empty lib with your library pallet. Next time starting poser will read this structure and cause it's empty there should be no delay. If doing so and poser is crashing on start again then we will be sure it's not a problem with the library as such or it's volume.

That's a nice debugging tool for runtimes. Good one!

Quote - And now for the cuff's ... Morkonan, they look great but that did my also. Did you try for example with bend knee's ? If that work I'm very interested in that cuff's.

They work fine with bended knees with the only problem seeming to be controlled morphs like thigh muscle flexes when the knees are bent at significant angle. I could add some standard V4 morphs in there that should handle that or just include some poke-through morphs. (Maybe a bit of both.)

Here, you can see they work just fine with extreme bends of the shin (unlike P3Ds boots which don't work well with the calf-flex controlled morph). However, on the thigh bend upwards, they don't have the controlled morph in them (there could be a center issue as well, I'll check it) so there's some poke through when the thigh is bent at a negative angle and the muscle morph is activated:

Quote - And having a wish I would prefer cuff's with a outcut V at the back. While the overall length is well I would prefer a bigger height in the front and a lower height at the back. So that the boot looks diagonal at the top from front to back with the cuff unfolded. You know what I mean ?
In your actual model I would give them up to 1/3 to 1/4 of length more in front and up to 1/4 to 1/5 less at the back ... depends a bit how wide the V will be.

Understood. I'll either put those in as a morph or just do another set as well. However, I can't go any lower in the back without also doing a corresponding morph for P3Ds boots. The top of my cuff is only a few centimeters above the top of P3Ds Thighboots. I'll raise the front in a new model or morph and see how that looks. I'll look for some photos of a "v" notched cuffed boot and use that as a guide for the size of the notch. Modelling the cuffs is the part that takes the least amount of time and doing two sets doesn't impact the rest of the workflow to any great extent at all.

Quote - B.t.w. did you see that these boots have a bug in their CR2 ? The creator has hidden far to much dials in that figure. You are unable to do anything with them if not conformed to figure.
At the moment I use a python script to unhide neccessary dials on the fly but that's annoying, have to go into the CR2 next time and push the respective parameters to correct values.
Are you interested in a updated CR2 ?

I haven't looked at the CR2 yet. I hadn't really ever looked at these boots until they were brought up in this thread. I don't have a lot of call for using thigh boots. :) But, I do like pirates so I'll do an unhide on them and see what's there. They probably used a pre-existing CR2 from something else and then hid too much of it.

Quote - Hope you had had a fine kunch ... for me it's time for late night diner now ... :biggrin:

Lunch was fine! I went to the cafeteria and had a full, well-balanced nutritional meal and a big slice of pie. :)

I managed to put in a bunch of morphs for the cuffs including some fit morphs, pirate morphs, flare, etc. But, I couldn't get the "notch" morph to conform correctly in all poses. I was suspecting that would be the case. Because of where the points are in the original, they want to continue translating the same way, their new location in the morph doesn't seem to be recalculated for the deformer.

So, I'll leave the piritish like morph in the regular cuffs and make a special "Pirate" cuff with a better notch and perhaps a bit more stylized. The other boots can have a notch put in them if they add a transmap.

Quote - - I've used POVRay a few times and it's interesting to use. But, I do agree there are some drawbacks to implementation. The learning curve to get good quality results intuitively is pretty steep. I don't mind certain command line "like" functions but POVRay has too much going on there for my personal tastes. The GUI for rendering is fairly straightforward but, it takes a lot of work to get used to using it. As you said, there is very little in the way of visual feedback previewing and that is really needed. I haven't updated my version in a long time.

Yessss, the problem isn't command line code as such --- in some case I do really miss it in the new visual IT world, DOS was a pain but struggling with lots of filenames was definit a task for batches and commandline and that's ways worse on desktop and icons --- but the real problem is to imagine something visual on your mind have to be translated into rough numbers and values.
Some guys are great with such kind of doing, e.g. chess masters or bagginsbill :biggrin:, but I have to see it, need it somewhat haptic ...

I did the updates but didn't use it for long time. There is a bridge between poser and POVray, it's somewhere on my disks as a zipfile. Wanted to try it but didn't ... once upon a time ... :closedeyes:

Quote - - I do like Hex's overall interface and it is very, very intuitive. There's not much need to spend hours searching among nested menus and obscure commands. It's all laid out for you fairly easily. You can be modelling with Hex and using complex functions within a few minutes. Trying to do that with something like 3DS, admittedly a much more robust and commercialized engine, and you'd be lucky to get primitives modelled the way you wanted in the same amount of time.

Thats the same to Cinema4D and it's the most stable prgramm I have ever seen. Only had 2 crashes lately on a new XP, never one on W2K for years. It clear and easy ... ok, from modelling to UV mapping it'S a bit complicated. But mostly in my mind cause the help tutorials are divided, one for modelling and one for 3D Bodypaint and the gap between is a bit wide ... at least for me.
One time with a separate tut I managed that well but have to search the tut again for the next try ... :sad:

But what I like most, even if you have a open function and/or a line/polygon or such hanging at your mouse, you can go easily to somewhere outside the viewport and do something like rotating/panning the view or key in some values and the actual function/element will stay in the viewport not running across the complete desktop.

Quote - - Hex's overriding problem, IMO, is intercepting errors when the program is waiting for a particular procedure to be "Validated" by the user. Choosing other functions that may depend on the validation of a previous procedue will result in an error. The new function doesn't have anything to appy itself to because the object is still "in use" by a function that is still "open" and not Validated (closed/finished). Since it wasn't set up to be intercepted with a reminder to the user to "Validate" whatever process they had begun beforehand and are now finished with, Hexagon crashes.

Indeed, thats the point with the weak user interface. Often it's ambigous if a function is open or not or you touch a wrong place while trying to activate only a number field or such. Then Hex isn't very error tolerant and can't handle that user faults in a exceptable manner ... and crash is the worst case, a real developer bug. But anyway there must be a reason for a difference between 100 $ and 800 to 1500 $ ... :huh:

Quote - - I agree. But, a previous crash could compound the problem, couldn't it? If unassigned instruction sets are running around in ram or still in Poser's old cache and Poser restarts and loads those instead of ignoring or flushing them, would that cause continued problems?

Yes and No ... normally after a program crash it's the main task of the operating system to make a garbage collection. But cause fiddling with flying windows and other of these useless gimmicks for year, MS has forgotten to improve these really essential tasks of their OS.
So there are gaps in memory, less on disk, after a crash. Normally with bigger programs I restart windows after a crash, especially with all graphical programs like poser, photoshop or such AND everytime if something out of MS-Office has gone without asking and allowance.
On other hand I found that poser is cleaning up very carfully it's rudiments lost in drive cache.
So I see the major problem with crashes in the OS capabilities handling such exceptions.

So paramount's starting problem looks more like a disability of the OS with one or more driver having an impact to poser. And surely virus scanner and firewall might be of big, big influence.
Especially Norton/Symantec tools are really memory wasting and ressource consuming.
I don't have that problem cause I have one (the oldest) pc with W98SE running as internet pc. Only having browser and such internettools on it besides virus scanner and firewall, but no real applications. So all coming and going to doubtful places is secured and checked. And the other pc's doing real work with real applications ae not able or allowed to have access to something outside the room. This in my opinion is one of the safest configurations and it spares the ressources on the working pc's to the real tasks. Ok, I have to download tutorial and transfer them in front of using. But on other hand working with poser while having a open internet connection in the back might not even been the best idea with view to the ressources.

Yeah, that up bending dicrepencies was the problem I encountered too. And it's not or not only a problem of the morphs and also no problem of the invisible magnets. It's mostly a problem how the mesh is influenced by the joint angles and bulges.
So my trial cuff was exactly centered (see images on first page) but didn't bend the same manner like the thigh actor ... naturally cause holding exactly its position to its parent but not being influenced like this. So I'm not fully sure if a morph can fix this ... ok, a bit for a still image but not while moving, so not animation safe, I guess. OK, no problem, animation is not my kind of hobby ... I also did photographing but never super-8 or video ... :biggrin:

But on the other hand cause these boots are freebies (it's easier as if sold with some experiments), if your morphs are ready and you agree, I could combine the cuff and the thigh mesh to a new tigh mesh and implement it as a alternate geometry. In this case it will follow completely to each movement, so being stretched and crushed in total omiting morphs for that. Ok, the outcoming CR2 will then be packaged (objaction mover for example) against the original but this is easier as with a sold piece in view to licensing things. This might solve that theme best.

B.t.w. the cuff's with morphs are looking very well even if they (the last blue ones) are a bit spiky at the front and the V might be bigger up to the topline of the cuff.
The side line is to curvy ... for a old fashioned pirate boot, not for a modern fetish boot. I mean that boots are made of leather, so it's a stiff material and that blue cuff then looks more like fabrics or latex. Not cause blue but think of that cuff being unfolded ... I think with normal leather this would be problematic. So I think that side view should be more like a diagonal line, a mirror line there the top part is folded down. You see my point ?

Quote - - I haven't looked at the CR2 yet. I hadn't really ever looked at these boots until they were brought up in this thread. I don't have a lot of call for using thigh boots. :) But, I do like pirates so I'll do an unhide on them and see what's there. They probably used a pre-existing CR2 from something else and then hid too much of it.

Oh, I did a mistake ... it was not the boot's CR2 but that from the respective dress. They have thrown out the complete transformation block where it is defined for menu. The parameters as such are all ok. But with that nodes definitions killed they don't show up in the parameters pallet. This is nasty cause I often try different clothing to look what suits best and therefore I move the reference pieces by 100 or 200 in x-axis. And therefore I missed that dials.
Have fixed it and might add the CR2 next time.

Well, here are some cuffs. :)

http://www.sharecg.com/v/32359/Poser/Pirate-Boot-Cuffs-Add-On

I redid them because I finally figured out that what was wanted was a big, floppy fantasy-style cuff instead of a more traditional cuff. I included a fix morph to handle V4's thigh bending upwards over 70deg. There are also body and fit morphs included. There are four textures, the base black leather and what you see above. They load with no texture with mats set up so they match the original P3D's Sexy Leather Thighboots as closely as possible. There's a UVMap template included and it's flat-mapped so it's very easy to change the base texture and bump if desired.

Quote - Yeah, that up bending dicrepencies was the problem I encountered too. And it's not or not only a problem of the morphs and also no problem of the invisible magnets. It's mostly a problem how the mesh is influenced by the joint angles and bulges.
So my trial cuff was exactly centered (see images on first page) but didn't bend the same manner like the thigh actor ... naturally cause holding exactly its position to its parent but not being influenced like this. So I'm not fully sure if a morph can fix this ... ok, a bit for a still image but not while moving, so not animation safe, I guess. OK, no problem, animation is not my kind of hobby ... I also did photographing but never super-8 or video ... :biggrin:

Yeah, the problem lies in it's not easy to correct that type of deformation without more mesh there. At that point, it's a problem following the JCMs for mesh that doesn't exist in the conformed objects. The shin bending controlled morph in the thing for the muscle flex is easy. The thigh bend and controlling that morph is more difficult. But, I put in a fix morph that should only be needed when the thigh is bent upwards at +70deg or more.

Quote - But on the other hand cause these boots are freebies (it's easier as if sold with some experiments), if your morphs are ready and you agree, I could combine the cuff and the thigh mesh to a new tigh mesh and implement it as a alternate geometry. In this case it will follow completely to each movement, so being stretched and crushed in total omiting morphs for that. Ok, the outcoming CR2 will then be packaged (objaction mover for example) against the original but this is easier as with a sold piece in view to licensing things. This might solve that theme best.

Sure, that'd be fine by me. I'd like to see how that is implemented anyway for future reference.

Quote - B.t.w. the cuff's with morphs are looking very well even if they (the last blue ones) are a bit spiky at the front and the V might be bigger up to the topline of the cuff.
The side line is to curvy ... for a old fashioned pirate boot, not for a modern fetish boot. I mean that boots are made of leather, so it's a stiff material and that blue cuff then looks more like fabrics or latex. Not cause blue but think of that cuff being unfolded ... I think with normal leather this would be problematic. So I think that side view should be more like a diagonal line, a mirror line there the top part is folded down. You see my point ?

(The blue was just the random color Poser assigned it without mats.)
As for the rest, I'm already with you on that and completely redid them. I finally figured out that what was wanted was a cross between the traditional high-boot cuff (they don't have peaks and are a bit longer and floppier) and the fetish-like or "movie style" high cuffs. I think I got pretty close to it.

I'll be happy to add any morphs, make changes or add textures if you want. Enjoy!

Goodness Morkonan these boot cuffs are absolutely devine!!!

That trim is soooo cool!!!

And the overall shape is soooo piratey and the skull and crossbones simply finishes it off a treat!!!

Brilliant!!!

Is there a link to these P3D's free boots, anywhere?!?

Morkonan, really great work ... looks nearly like Maureen O'Hara coming round the corner or even better ... :thumbupboth: (She had a V in the front side of her boots ... not my fashion)

Have to try it now asap ...

paramount, here is the link
www.pretty3d.com/download.php
go to the bottom of that page ... though, don't miss to have a look to the rest of the pages ... there lot's of goodies ... a bit higher are also some separat textures for Sexy Leather.
I'm at the moment not sure if you need to make a account prior to downloading freebies.

Out now for dressing my captain ... :tongue1:

Thanks for that link, Jo...

I've added this render to show you the latest package I've added (yesterday) to my already bloated dowloads runtime: Its Tortuga Port of the Pirates by Luke Ahearn, and its jam-packed with unfathomably beautiful props to blend in with our very piratey and unquestionable goings-on to be sure!!! The glowing prop street and wall lights included are scrumptious and the detail overal for not much cash is favourably exquisite...

...And I'm not even sure why I've gone all pirate keen of late!?!

Quote - ......And I'm not even sure why I've gone all pirate keen of late!?!

Because... Pirates are cool. :)

Hey, matey ... hurry up to have Tortuga cleaned up

cause Lady Hornblower is on her way to visit your lousy jerkwater town :ohmy: ... she's a bit bored with the speed on her morning walk ... :bored:

That boot cuff's work like a charm ... mostly, Morkonan, please see next message ...

No big efforts done with lighting and background for this quick shot ...

Quote - Hey, matey ... hurry up to have Tortuga cleaned up cause Lady Hornblower is on her way to visit your lousy jerkwater town :ohmy: ... she's a bit bored with the speed on her morning walk ... :bored:

That boot cuff's work like a charm ... mostly, Morkonan, please see next message ...

No big efforts done with lighting and background for this quick shot ...

I'm glad they're useful! I'll hang around for the next message. I assume I need to do some tweaks or cleanup work? If so, no problem. I'm happy to oblige!

Hey shipmates!

Above set took ten minutes to put together and light and two minutes to render - not bad eh?!?

Nice render and the boot cuffs look posatively adorable. Nice outfit, Jo. And I'll simply have to say it again folks: That Skull & Crossbones motif is absolutely stunning!!!

Now ain't it odd!!! You guys started the Moonbase Girl Outfit, and UFO was suddenly on UK cable TV every day - and still is - almost... And then you went and started off the piratey themed props and oddments, and now the TV (UK anyway) is awash (good choice of word eh?!?) with all things most piratey!!!

So what's next then guys!?!

Quote -
Hey shipmates!

Above set took ten minutes to put together and light and two minutes to render - not bad eh?!?

Nice render and the boot cuffs look posatively adorable. Nice outfit, Jo. And I'll simply have to say it again folks: That Skull & Crossbones motif is absolutely stunning!!!

Now ain't it odd!!! You guys started the Moonbase Girl Outfit, and UFO was suddenly on UK cable TV every day - and still is - almost... And then you went and started off the piratey themed props and oddments, and now the TV (UK anyway) is awash (good choice of word eh?!?) with all things most piratey!!!

So what's next then guys!?!

Uh.. hmm.. it seems the forces of the Universe are working in conjunction here..

So, how about we do a Winning Lottery Ticket and you tell us what UK TV say's the winning numbers are? :)

That set looks awesome, btw!

Morkonan, I have found some small issues and fixed most of them (see list below). I have included a update file only holding the changed CR2 and PZ2. Might be you want to integrate into your package.
Also in the character folder I have added the Dress.CR2 from the original P3D-package. As said before I have recalled the transformations dials in body which was missing (by error?).

With you cuff's the special bend-morph is working very well. B.t.w. did you create the cuff's with the "LengthShort"-morph of the boots l/rThigh set to -1. Looks like cause in normal position there is a discrepence seen between top of cuff and top of boot. Especially while looking from backwards into the upper part of that lovely V.

Now what did I do with you nice package.

In CR2 and PZ2 I changed all that absolute path references with windows-conform backslash to the poser normal relative format ":Runtime:Geometries:....". I think this will avoid problems for all people having poser not installed at the default location and/or using external runtimes. Poser 7 and also 6 will work with this without any problems. Poser 5 might be a bit critical if used in a external runtime and not being located there ... this is a "flasher" in P5 ... sometimes ok, sometimes not ...

Next points are all only in CR2.

Changed all [actor]:7 or Figure 7 to [actor]:1 or Figure 1. It's not essential, more cosmetic, but as a final version keeps things straight and clear.
Changed 2 or 3 display options to the default USEPARENT cause I found that going to a different display option in poser only one of the cuffs followed. The other stayed with full shader and didn't show me the mesh lines.
Changed DefaultPick from hip to body. I find it's more useful to have body as the first choice if the character has to be translated, rotated or such. Cause I normally have IK-Chain on it's impossible to place a character in scene using the hip.
I removed all abdomen and foot related twist and smooth settings from hip and shins. These actors are completely outside and with also hip and shin without geometry these joints have no influence to the thighs. But I don't know how intelligent poser is working internally if having useless parameters. So these joints might/will only cost memory to hold them and time to recalculate them while rendering without any effects. Ok, you may say it's only very little ressource but with more than one figure plus round 4...6 cloth parts plus hair or other props also small amounts get together to make a big bunch ... and than crash rendering or worse ...
I have hidden hip and both shin's cause they are not used to be moved directly by a dial and are not holding morphs or such. So the user doesn't need them in view.
That all was easy but now I see as last a bigger problem, ok, no really problem, but very strange.
All that V4 bodymorphs, e.g. FBMAmazon, are twice. One as FBMAmazon and the second one as FBMAmazon_0. First problem, in dials pallet both come up as FBMAmazon, the lower one is that with _0 ... I think, not sure.
I have found that one is working for the right actors and the other for the left actors. So this is unusual. I could understand if this will happen in BODY to have separat acccess to left and right bodyparts, though also unusual. Normally FBMAmazon is influencing all parts in total.
But wait, there is more. For example FBMAmazon in right thigh is making the greatest (normal) morph, but FBMAmazon_0 is also making a very small morph (on some same vertices but a bit into the other direction). And this happens for left thigh vice versa. But the body fbm's work straight to there conterparts, so doesn't take into acount to use both as one.
So for me it looks like you have done them in two runs and than put together without aggregating the morphs to one final result.
I think it might be useful to have this behavior fixed, especially with a look to all that copymorph-python-scripts which brings the values from the parent figue to all conformed parts. Or also if looking to cross-talk driven conforming.

B.t.w. the original boot's from P3D doesn't have any build in bodymorphs. In my SHADO materials package I had implemented a boots++.cr2 where I had rebuild the morphs using D3D's CopyMorph program.

And as a penultimate point what do you think about having that cool trim as a separat material group. This will open the chance to have leather and trim textured separat using a procedural shader without a image texture. It would be easier to change the cuff main color according to a given boot color.

And as last a morph to only flare the two edges left and right of the V could be nice. So to spread the V a bit outside and/or upside.

Sorry for that much critics and/or proposals because your cuff's are also marvelous and well working :thumbupboth: without these ... but I have read somethere

Quote - I'll be happy to add any morphs, make changes or add textures if you want.

... :blushing: ... so I couldn't resist.

Will give my alternate geometry idea a try in the next days, I keep you informed. And also have a idea in the back of my mind that it must be possible, if using alternate geometry, to have these cuffs also implemented to the shin parts a bit below knee. That than might be a very versatile pirate boot ... :rolleyes:

Hopefully for such a Lottery Ticket the UK TV might give us the the numbers of the german Lottery ... 35 Million Euro in jackpot this weekend ...
But you need 6 numbers plus the correct super number, that's the last digit of your ticket. So the chance is round 1:14000000 to get the cash. The chance to meet a lightning personally is 3 to 4 times better than that. So anybody here who has been crashed by a lightning 4 times in the past ... might be the lucky guy/girl ... :laugh:

Nice market place with that dominant ... uh ... hanging facility ... or there a too much doctors working on spinal column problem ...

But Lady Hornblower wants to know, where the hell is the tavern ... :woot:

Might be the 35 Million or the late hour ... I have forgotten to attach the file :blushing:

But cause it's to big for this forum, Morkonan, I have mailed it to your email adress ... Hope this is ok. File is virus scanned.

Quote - Might be the 35 Million or the late hour ... I have forgotten to attach the file :blushing:

But cause it's to big for this forum, Morkonan, I have mailed it to your email adress ... Hope this is ok. File is virus scanned.

Thanks VERY Much! I'll take a look at it in the morning and incorporate it in a new CR2.

I'll also take a look at the mesh, paying attention to what you described concerning the length. What I was planning on doing was making the interior of the cuff long enough so that it would work, in a pinch, with another boot that was similar to P3D's if someone wanted to use it for that.

I used a morph cloth program to transfer morph approximations over to the cuffs for the very same reason - In case someone either had already morphed their P3D boots or were trying to use another.

The issues with the CR2 are things I'm still learning. I'm not good with debugging CR2s yet. :) Anything you point out in that area is excellent learning material for me!

I'll add some movement morphs when I build the new CR2. I was rushing it at the end because I didn't have much time. I had wasted a bit of time with the other cuffs, trying to make a cuff that would do "Everything." Lots of morphs later, I realized that it just wasn't going to be suitable. So, I started over from scratch. :) I'll throw in a few movement morphs for the rear wings of the notch, a bigger flare morph and then I'll put in some special Fitting morphs for people who may be trying to use other boots. Morphs are really easy. I was thinking about putting in some extra bones for controls but, that would just make it a bit too heavy on resources for what it would most likely be used for most of the time.

Quote -

That all was easy but now I see as last a bigger problem, ok, no really problem, but very strange.
All that V4 bodymorphs, e.g. FBMAmazon, are twice. One as FBMAmazon and the second one as FBMAmazon_0. First problem, in dials pallet both come up as FBMAmazon, the lower one is that with _0 ... I think, not sure.
I have found that one is working for the right actors and the other for the left actors. So this is unusual. I could understand if this will happen in BODY to have separat acccess to left and right bodyparts, though also unusual. Normally FBMAmazon is influencing all parts in total.
But wait, there is more. For example FBMAmazon in right thigh is making the greatest (normal) morph, but FBMAmazon_0 is also making a very small morph (on some same vertices but a bit into the other direction). And this happens for left thigh vice versa. But the body fbm's work straight to there conterparts, so doesn't take into acount to use both as one.
So for me it looks like you have done them in two runs and than put together without aggregating the morphs to one final result.
I think it might be useful to have this behavior fixed, especially with a look to all that copymorph-python-scripts which brings the values from the parent figue to all conformed parts. Or also if looking to cross-talk driven conforming.

This is evidently a problem I had with using Morph Cloth. I tried to limit transfers and noticed that it was doubling up on some test items. It seemed like it was loading morphs for each body part and then loading them all again every time it moved to a new body party. The effect would bloat the CR2 with all sorts of duplicates. I don't know if it is "User Error" (which is likely) or a bug (less likely).

Quote - And as a penultimate point what do you think about having that cool trim as a separat material group. This will open the chance to have leather and trim textured separat using a procedural shader without a image texture. It would be easier to change the cuff main color according to a given boot color.

I thought about doing that but I was already getting behind in my deadline to get them done. The only reason I didn't do that was because I hadn't built the mesh with that in consideration so I would have had to go back and tweak it so the new material group would be a nice, even width across the bottom of the cuff. I can revisit that before I start doing the morphs and tweak the mesh then if it is needed.

Quote - And as last a morph to only flare the two edges left and right of the V could be nice. So to spread the V a bit outside and/or upside.

Will do!

Quote - Will give my alternate geometry idea a try in the next days, I keep you informed. And also have a idea in the back of my mind that it must be possible, if using alternate geometry, to have these cuffs also implemented to the shin parts a bit below knee. That than might be a very versatile pirate boot ... :rolleyes:

:)
I'm really looking forwards to the alternate geometry lesson! heh heh

PS- BTW, I didn't hide the shin/hip because I usually leave them exposed out of habit, just in case they're needed. I'm used to leaving them alone since bones like that are only included in helping smooth out certain JP's/Morphs when conforming.

Quote - This is evidently a problem I had with using Morph Cloth. I tried to limit transfers and noticed that it was doubling up on some test items. It seemed like it was loading morphs for each body part and then loading them all again every time it moved to a new body party. The effect would bloat the CR2 with all sorts of duplicates. I don't know if it is "User Error" (which is likely) or a bug (less likely).

If we talk about Dimension3D CopyMorph program you don't need to add morphs to the single parts, e.g. thigh's, if you have selected that morph for the BODY part.
Body doesn't have any regular morphs, normally. So each morph named in BODY is a master for the slaves existing in the single actors and therefor while doing the BODY-morph all that single morph will be created if neccessary, will say the part is filled with a mesh.
And yes, I have found also that in fact one has selected that morph in body and the single part, it will be done twice.

And also a hint, especially cause we are talking about a cloth figure only active somethere in the leg's region, I doesn't find it really neccessary to produce all that figure morphs. For example FBMBulk is mostly good for also Amazon or Bodybuilder. The differences between all these morphs are not so big as lower you go. So building a dress these are of more importance to fit the body most exactly, but on the thigh's and at least shin's they are not so different.
And on the other hand a boot is much more stiff as for example a stocking. So in a stocking more different morphs are also of more importance than in a boot. So here I think it's possible to save some amount of ressource and keep better overlook in doing not all morphs. The main necessity is to increase/decrease in x and/or z direction. So FBMBulk is a good one for widening and FBMThin or FBMYoung vice versa.

Also I found that there might be differences in the original morphs and recalculating from these, the program does some better and some worse translations depending on the morph. For example have a look to the FBMAmazon and FBMBulk in my piratebelt. Bulk is looking very smooth and well done in opposite to Amazon ... even both are doing nearly the same with the belt.

Quote - The issues with the CR2 are things I'm still learning. I'm not good with debugging CR2s yet. :) Anything you point out in that area is excellent learning material for me!

Glad if I might help you in that stuff ...

Quote - PS- BTW, I didn't hide the shin/hip because I usually leave them exposed out of habit, just in case they're needed. I'm used to leaving them alone since bones like that are only included in helping smooth out certain JP's/Morphs when conforming.

Doing so is a case of occupational disease, I guess. As I started with pc's and software development a 25 years ago all that user's has been somewhat interested, curious, motivated and enthusiastic. Even a bug was not only bug, it was the chance to find out why or at least to find a (new) way around. But over the times we all together have produced a new kind of user, let's say the "kick and rush" or may be the "click and crash" user. Doing correct or silly things but never knowing or being interested in what they did.
And so me and lot's of colleagues have learned to hide all that things a user is not urgently needing or should not use by accident. It makes the life lot's easier ... not the user's life maybe but mine ... :laugh:
Though, since some year's there is new category besides user's. They call themselves system administrator. For that guy's is best if hiding not only the unneccessary but all things ... for a real developer they are the truely living bureaucratic nightmare ... :cursing:

If you are in that business, ok, than I'm soooo sorry, but there are also some good guy's among them ... even if rarely found ... :biggrin:

But in fact of that hidden hip and shin, with this clothing it's not essential. But I have found also for example belts only using the hip region but having all actors in the menu including thumb1 to 3. And that is really annoying to search the only needed actor in a overcrowded menu.
And these mesh-less parts being next to last filled part are really only used to influence in the parent child chain.
Although also not every time. If you have a look to my pirate belt. The last mesh-filled part is the hip. But in this cloth I have also deleted the neighbours l/rThigh. Their parent-child influence was bad cause the left side of the belt is more in the thigh region than the hip region and so it followed a thigh movement more than really good. So I eliminated that influence.

So the rule of thumb all mesh-filled parts plus one direct neighbour is also depending on the circumstances and sometimes not needed.

That alternate geometry thingie as such is not complicated but there I'm not sure how to solve best is the theme with the morphs. Morphs can belong to separat parts of the alternates. So single morphs like for example widing the V will be no problem. But implementing that FBM morphs ... I guess that CopyMorph programs would not work on these. Might be that is neccessary to have separate CR2 to translate these morphs first. And than they have to be combined to one CR2 ... that's a fascinating task ...
In worse case all these single created morphs have to be saved as objects and than reloaded into the final CR2 ... we will see ...

Here we are again ... and it's rather satisfying ...

If I had done it only on the Sexy Leather original boot (without morphs), it would be finished.
But I used that CR2 holding the bodymorphs created with D3D CopyMorph program.

As seen left under 1 the original is completely intact and does also react to the morph dials.

Than I have combined the new cuffs with the respective original boot parts meshes. The thighs for number 2 and with the shins for 3 and 4.
:ohmy: What a sewing ... so the cuff and the original mesh are connected with their outmost vertices and saved as a new mesh object. In case of the shins I have shortened that originals for the correct height and rescaled/rotated the cuff's for best fitting.

So all that cuffs are now parts of one CR2. And as seen, the uv map is left intact. Oh, that green (preview color) seam is the new "trim" material group. I have taken the outmost line of polygons around and into the V and have split it with inner extension 3 or 4 times. The new outmost line of polygons is now a bit turned inside to have a feeling of thicker material at the edge.
And so most of the old outer polygon line went to a new material group ready to be textured.

I had to tweak the joints and spherical fallout zones somewhat. For the thigh's it was easy, only 10 degree more in one exclude paramameter for bend and, as you see, the old "BendFixMorph" is not neccessary any more.
B.t.w. the seen poke through a the legs is the same as with the original boot. So not related with my changes.

With the shin's it's lot's more complicated cause changing the fallout zones to have included the whole cuff is influencing the original style without cuffs more than good. So I did a acceptable compromise. The higher position at the shins (3) is quite good working. But with the lower position I'm not completely satisfied, the front part is stretched too much round the corner.
But this is as is for two reasons. First it's the upstanding style of the cuff mesh and second in accordance to that it's coming to the mostly bend position.

If the original wouldn't be a thigh boot but a boot only reaching up to the knee, I would have killed the bending in conjunction with the thighs to fix this. But this would kill the functionality if thigh is used too.

So I will do a additional alternate part with the cuffs deeper ... let's say one cuff height deeper along the shins. This should bring them out of the critical bending zone.
So than that positions 2, 3 and the new one are usable also with some more extrem bends and that position 4 is only good for les bend legs, e.g. standing or lying positions.
I think thats acceptable at all.

For using the shin cuffs, the thigh's are set invisible. In Poser 7 that visibility check mark can be changed to be a dial and therefor can be used as slaved body dial. I did so that all these can be steered in the dial pallet of the body. I'm not sure if this will work in Poser 6 too. In P5 it doesn't. So in P5 and maybe P6 you have to go to the single actors or the heirarchy window to set the thighs invisible.

For the next days I will have a look on how to transfer the bodymorphs also with using cuffs.
The question is not IF this will work but HOW to do it best and easiest. Have to try out ... :rolleyes:

But for the moment I'm really happy with that ... clap, clap, clap, ... :tt1:
Think that this is making a really versatile sexy pirate boot ...

Ahh, b.t.w. I think a separat morph to have more flare with the cuff's isn't needed. This will make things with the sperical fallout zones only more complicated. Using alternate geometry is a bit limitated to having parts that are not too different in their size.
But having a morph to move the both edges at the V could be a nice addon.

A bit late but if ye be interested for future ventures I can point ye to some references to answer some questions and notions mentioned within the first few posts of this thread.

Since taking me leave of the Poser communities I have been running with pirate reenactor groups of the GAoP (Golden Age of Piracy). We do Ren faire and Pirate festivals doing black powder demonstrations, mock sword fights, and much chasing o' wenches and drinking o' rum.

As for the "period" o' what ye speak; first I noticed you mentioned Tortuga, therefore I would assume ye be speaking of the GAoP wich falls between 1650 and 1730 (give or take 20 years depending on who you speak to).

As for the types of material; unless ye be from the Orients then mostly ye be working with fine linens, wools, and leather also hemp (a few others as well but I not be a tailor). Cotton would be rare as it was hard to come by and very pricy, not much of it to be found with the English, French, and Spaniards that roamed the Caribbean...some, much not much.

Ok, I like P3D's outfits too myself, but in reality the dresses of the period where longer...MUCH longer.
s296.photobucket.com/albums/mm173/Mad_L_photos/Pyrates/ (a few of my own P3D renders)
Actually the only couple female pirates known dressed as men, pretending to be men actually; aye, I be speaking of Ann Bonny and Mary Reed.
Now earlier in history there was one other, known as "The mother of pirates", an Irish lass; Grace O’Malley. Now she wore dresses as best we can tell, but they also where long dresses, down to her ankles.
Now there were a few other female pirates recorded in the logs of history, but I have seen no others that offer any paintings or even period artist interpritations of how they dresses, but by descriptions given it would be safe to assume they either wore traditional long dresses or dressed as a man.

Now, on to the boots; a much debated subject in the priate world. There are still some who insist that "pirates Never wore boots" - BUT, that has indeed recently been debunked! For the pirate ship the Whydah has been found to have boots aboard, but currently only shoes are on display. Also, we have recieved recent word that there have been found an entire cobbler's shop in the now under water remains of Tortuga itself, it is said to have entire shelves of "boots". So far no renderings or artifacts have been made public as this word was just revieled last year in a forum by one of the researchers working there...he says details will come later as this finding was not what they were actually after so it is 'on the back burner' at this time - BUT, these two findings do show that while it was uncommon, pirates DID have access to boots. While no further information at this time has been given, we are assuming they are most likely Musketeer-like in fashion. However, a woman's boot would be much shorter, women of the period seldom had boots reaching half way to the knee, again because they NEVER wore short dresses. Even those who did dawn breeches or even pantaloons would have boots that only reached within an inch or two below the knee.

As for the Bucket, or Muskateer type boots, a good resource would be Loyalist Arms who has a cobbler which has been making us exact replicas of both Muskateer boots as well as just last year he his now making us Exact replicas of the shoes recovered from the pirate ship Whydah:
www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/clothing.htm

Shoes and boots of the period where Leather, all leather, leather souls, in some cases such as these shoes and boots they have full pegged wooden heels.
And trust me, we have experimented and I can vouch first hand that neither would be of common wear while on board a ship - wet leather is SLIPPERY! Actually most will agree that pirates, while on ship at least, went either bare foot or some have been painted to wear sandals made of hemp rope (the likes of what many of us would like to find a good maker of...oh yes, there are a couple out there, but they are not of proper making and so far none of us have been able to convince the makers to accomodate us...it took two years to convince Loyalist to make proper shoes so pirate reenactors could stop wearing civil war and coloniel era designes)

Now if ye wants a bit more Hollywood style in yer boots then ye can take a look at the ones actually made for POTC movie, the very place mine own come from, CAboots. Here be examples of Will Turner, Jack Sparrow, as well as Barbosa and others:
www.caboots.com/category/mp/

On to the part about weapons; again Loyalist would be a good start, after all they supplied many of the black powder firearms for the Disney movie POTC:
www.loyalistarms.freeservers.com/pirategoods.htm

Now if ye wants a bit more true-t'-life information t' work int' yer renderings then ye may want t' take a look at some of the hard core reenactors of piracy, for that I would recommend browsing the pages of Gentlemen of Fortune, there they deal with realistic sailors of the GAoP era and have a full detailed description of the 'common sailor' who would be pirate and what his clothes would be and type of gear he would have access to:
www.gentlemenoffortune.com/

For some fantastic examples of swords, some period, some 'artisticly enhanced', I would recommend a visit to Baltimore Knife & Sword, maker o' some o' th' finest in REAL and STAGE swords there be:
baltimoreknife.com/
and for some more hand forged, and truely period, sword that will set ye t' drewl'n in yer rum then take at look at Old Dominion Forge:
www.olddominionforge.com/swords.html (swords)
www.olddominionforge.com/knives.html (knives)

Other links for information, inspiration, and links t' even more information:
www.noquartergiven.net/ (pirate news magazine, browse site for tons o' links t' tons o' resources)
www.bilgemunky.com/ (Bilge Munky pirate radio as well as he's reviews on all things 'pirate'..including RUM)

And if ye do not wish t' be gutted 'n yer inards fed t' the fishes then also stop by 'n visit th' True pirate wench, one one and only, the Doxie with Moxie, Scarlett Harlott:
www.scarlettharlott.com/index.php (but of course she tis Not a 'period' pirate wench, but she sure be Inspirational!)

Quote - A bit late but if ye be interested for future ventures I can point ye to some references to answer some questions and notions mentioned within the first few posts of this thread.
....

Awesome links!

I've been looking for some piratin' links!

I started investigating period style pirate garb because of this thread and have already decided to make a freebie pirate outfit. But, I have to finish up my UFO outfit and all its inclusions first. (lots of stuff is going to be in that one)

So, check back in awhile and you may have some freebie pirate garb for Poser if you want it!

PS - If you think there is an outstanding example of a Pirate Captain outfit (I have several noteable examples from period engravings/paintings atm) and a really good one for a standard Pirate sailor, by all means link your preferences there and I'll heavily weight the choice for the final freebie in favor of them! After all, you're a pirate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsJyfN0ICU

Amazing links, igohigh...

Very informative and inspirational...

And that Skarlett Harlett is a hoot, now ain't she just...

Aye, if ye be interested in some research links I can list some for ye, even some with tailors and some clothing patterns. Gotta run right now, got some school'n t' get t'; something bout building "Intelligent Homes"...but I can put a list together this weekend.

The GAoP be an elusive era as most tend to go for Ren period (before) or Colonial period (after), so the early 1700's is almost a 'dark age' but there be references out there. One thing that makes true pirates and artists clash be that Hollywood ignores th' true pirate culture; gotta remember that pirates be the first true Democracy and a captian was 'voted' into his position and should the crew feel he was not holding t' their expectations then he could be voted out at any time; with that said, it be true that many a pirate ship was commanded by multiple 'captains' throughout its time on the seven seas, so the average captain did not really have a 'captain's coat' and such, yesterday he was just a crewman, today he be a captain, in th' morn he may just be a crewman again (or killed for not wanting to give up th' title). Also remmeber that a "captain" of a pirate ship really only had 'authority' during a battle, after that, if he wanted to live, he was just an equal with the rest of the men. Pirates did not much care for 'ranks' for that it what most of them where fighting, running, from. And the actual story can be more complicated as 'crews' where assembled in various manor, some very colorful pasts, some kept in the 'family', others, true rouges of the sea. The culture of the true pirates that roamed the seven seas is as colorful as the fantasy that Hollywood protrays them but not in the same light; many a pirate was only a pirate for their former ship was captured by pirates and they where 'pressed' (forced at gun point most often) to join the pirates or die.

Anyway, I have to run now but will assemble a list to some places what cover pirates and their garb. Jack Sparrow; well, while technicaly acurate the problem be "acurate to WHAT era"? For that movie they combined the clothing of pre-GAoP with post-GAoP and mixed in a little colorful fantasy t'boot, but the coat, breeches, vest are all true, just not the proper cut of any one period.

gotta go, cant be tardy....don't want th' tech t' set me adrift - 'n I aint talk'n Tech neither!

I guess ye jolly Hollywood movie fixers be jaunty fellows whome wish, so 't speak, to show us only that does be living in our sadly modern fantasy ways of viewing/thinking's - and that thus changes does glam things up a bit/tad for all and sundry to tittle/tattle about!?!

Igohigh, really outstanding links and lot's of information ... though I knew of the Scarlett site ... :biggrin:

Everytime I'm really impressed by people doing much effort to have most accurate rebuilds of old tmes ... each summer we have medieval marketenders, knights and the rest of people from that era in town, a really spectacular event for sure ...

But for me, I'm good enough to do exact replicas. There better talented people out there. So I'm glad to have visualized my fantasies, being aware that it's not exactly the old reality.

But in that correct sense most of the beautyful outfits sold or freely distributed for the poser ladies are more fantasy than reality ... though not only from pirate era's as also from the day's round the corner. And the complete scifi stuff is than undefined if ever will exist ...

But I think it's legal to play with fantasies also ... life may be otherwise sad enough ...

Regarding to the boots, as far as I know boots and also shoe's was not very cheap in that day's and also later. So right, most common sailor's went barefeet and this was up to the later times of the iron men on wooden boats ... the tea clipper races as also to the times of the salpetre curses to the chile coast.

B.t.w. often pirates was not only pirate by accident cause captured with their ships on sea. They in total often being sailors by accident going to sea to avoid prison or worse. And later on also normal men found themselfes being a sailor on the next morning cause being shanghaied.
A interesting theme ... think you go to the pub with some friends in the evening and awake with a thick head in the morning being on sea without any knowledge or interest in sailing ... very strange ...

So this thingie of changing captains, though true, is interesting cause there might be also been the need of some navigational knowledge. And that for sure was not common knowledge in that times. How did they solve this problem

Ok, first lets start with th' philosophy. There be generaly three frames o' thought out there;

the Hollywood/Fantasy - pretty much anything goes. If its flashy, do it. But expect to get much ridicule from loyalists and historians
the Pirate Reenactor/Historians

ok, now I said "three" but only listed two. Well, number two becomes the problem. True hard core historians take things to the extreme, often refered to as "clothing natzies". In a forum just a few day ago it was stated

"If you can not provide at least three evidences of proof, then it never existed. If you can provide three evidences of proof it did exist but one evidence of proof that it did not exist, then it never existed."

Then ye have your 'rational thinkers', stating that if within reason you can prove all the elements were there at the time and the technology and materials existed, then there is nothing saying that it 'could not have existed' so therefore it well may have existed.
Example: 'Baldrics' - there is proof baldrics were in common use 200 years Before the GAoP (1650 to 1730) and then there is proof they were still in common use up to 200 years later...BUT, there is NO proof that they were still in "common use" During the GAoP. Therefore the 'clothing natzies' say "pirates simply did not use them".

Now, you have to remember that the 'clothing natzies', the hard core "show me" historians, relay soly on 'Recovered Artifats' - with pirates, there is Very Little. While some of the prominate figures (Blackbeard, Calico Jack) where 'captured' and 'brought to justice' in a court of law, there where 100s of 1,000s that were either killed on the spot, went down with the sip, or never caught at all - take Captain Avery for instance, often said to be one of The most sucsessful pirates of all times (even if it was by sheer luck) and NOBODY knows where he disapeared to. There where 100s or 1,000s of pirates and pirate crews that NEVER made it into any history book.

'Pirates' is a very generalized word. Are we specificaly speaking of "pirates", or perhaps buccaneers, or privateers, or mutanieers, and are we speaking of a crew of a particular nationality (English, French, Spanish, Barbados, Asian, Dutch, ??) or are we speaking of the few that were a crew of various backgrounds what came together off small islands of the Caribbean, in which case they would become th' modern theory of Chaos to the scince of 'pirates'.
And the particular crew ye speak about, what are their background? Are they primarily of military background what 'turned pirate' or are they of desparte men who joined in some tavern (perhaps Tortuga or New Providence) and then took to the sea.

Not all pirates started out as seamen, as matter of fact a well ran ship had men of many backgrounds; carpenters, blacksmiths, doctors, tailors, cooks. Many were 'pressed' into piracy against their will, many went t' the docks seeking a crew t' join, others were indeed naval personal who committed mutiny and took over the ship and tossed all those pledging loyalty t' the crown overboard.

So, basically what I am getting at, where clothing and even weapons are conserned; there are many a pirate enthusiast that will argue what Is and what Is Not correct, and continuously those stating something is not correct find themselves eating those words as proof is found, and visa versa. It all depends on which side of #2 they belong to and how much you at least try to stick with 'reality' in creating something using only the resources available at the time - even if there is no Hard Copy to draw from. For two years I watched as they fought in forums over 'boots', now that an authentic Historian who is actively excavating Tortuga has come and stated there is proof that pirate ruled outposts contained boots, many of the hard cases still reject the notion. As matter of fact I even found one thread just the other day where a proclaimed historian expert still argues that pirates never wore earrings - yet there is much proof that many did, perhaps not enough 'proof' for anyone to say that earrings where "common" but there is much proof that not only pirates but men of well renoun in the 16th and 17th century wore earrings. It is like those historians that reject any notion that pirates EVER at all had hidden treasure - yet there are two well known cases that state otherwise...thou in neither case has the treasure been actually found; I am speaking of:

Captain Kidd: at his hanging he is said to have hinted that he did indeed stash his booty somewhere between India and Boston.
http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/kidd.html
Olivier Le Vasseur (French pirate); said at his hanging "My treasure to he who can understand". And to this very day some very distinguished men still spend thousands of dollars in search of his hidden treasure
http://www.michaelbehar.com/smithsonian/treasurequest.html

Also it was well known and documented that at times pirates would capture more then they could carry and would 'stash' it to come back for the rest later (read about Captain Drake and others and you will find some of these tales)

But back on the subject of 'clothing'; I have found that many (not by any means to say 'all') pirate reenactors seem to come from the Civil War reenactment groups, they in particular like to argue that "all pirates where of Military origin and therefore would have adapted a military style dress" - actually I find that thought quite amuzing from such self proclaimed 'experts of authority' as there is so much evidence to the contrary. Of course many pirate crews were, but many others were not, many pirate crews never served a day in the king or queen's service, many were of a fishermen background or whaling background or even simple merchant background, many came from careers upon land, there is even one (forget his name at the moment) who was a prominent businessman, never sailed a day in his life, then one day, in his mid-thirties, just woke up and said "I'm going to sea to be a pirate" - he was killed within his first year of piracy and refered to having a "mid-life crisis" and "the worst pirate ever".

There is a site that details a few of the known crewmen of the so far one and only 'recovered' pirate ship; The Whydha
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/whydah/main.html

The ship currently being recovered as Queen Ann's Revenge has yet to be positively identified as such, so far we are all just hoping.

(did you know the average higth of a pirate was only 5-foot 5-inches, a far cry for Hollywood's 6-foot plus pirates!)

Now, do naught take this all wrong JoEtzold, for I am naught arguing with anyone's want for fantasy, i have done me own share and as stated earlier I do enjoy P3D's fantasy pirates me own self.

But for anyone seeking reference for more true to period resources, I did promise some links to such, so for now I can offer you these:

Good picturtorial recourse for clothing: http://www.picturetrail.com/sfx/album/view/6655055

An online class of dress in th' 17th Century: http://www.costumes.org/classes/fashiondress/17thCent.htm
http://www.thepirateking.com/index.htm (one of the most complete list of pirates with detailed bios. And TONS more information; ships, weapons, shanties, timelines, terminologies, links)

Misc list of resources:
http://www.hotpiratebabes.com/ (The Mother Load O' Female Pirates! browse through his Calanders! Ye will Not be sorry!)
http://www.leathermystics.com/index.html
http://captjackspiratehats.com/ (maker of the hats seen in National Geographic's "Blackbeard" movie - he also made me own hat too!)
http://www.centerstagecostumes.com/Catalog/FrameCAT4.htm
http://jas-townsend.com/
http://www.hightowercrafts.com/page5.html
http://www.blackbeardscreations.com/ (great leather goods!)
http://topnotchcostumes.com/index.html (GREAT frock coats, THE best POTC Jack frock, she has some more authentic types too)
http://carlislesonline.com/
http://www.pendragoncostumes.com/ (Fantastic designes, some very original, some very period)
http://www.mistythicket.com/mens/pants/pirate.html (another fine POTC example)

Firearms:
http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/index.shtml (where me own Dragoon comes from)
http://pyrate.org/baldrics.html (Blackbeard Style pistol baldric!! I REALLY want one o' these!)
http://sykesutler.home.att.net/musket2.htm

Navigation tools:
Chip Log: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_log
Octant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octant_(instrument)
Backstaff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_quadrant#Davis_quadrant
Astrolab: http://astrolabes.org/mariner.htm

For Fun:
http://pirateprincessproductions.com/ (some Cool short movies)
http://manybooks.net/categories/PIR (some free pirate novels in PDF format)
http://www.reclaimingtheblade.com/main/ (new movie - Coming Soon!)
http://www.thepiratescharles.com/?mpf=frame (THE greatest modern Pirate band - Buy ALL three CDs, ye will love them; we do! local So. Calif band)
http://www.chivalry.com/jollyrogers/ (another FANTASTIC band, get ALL their CDs too! Cutlasses & Curves be one o' me favorites)
http://www.piratespassions.com/defun/video-channels.html (misc pirate related videos on the Internet)
http://www.pyratesway.com/ (Pyrates Way magazine)
http://www.noquartergiven.net/ (No Quarter Given...hey, me new issue just arrived Today!!!)
http://www.piratesmagazine.com/ (Pirates Magazine - Scarlett Harlott now works there! lovely Scarlett!!)
http://www.rumuniversity.com/ (Univeristy o' Rum....oh ya, RUM, Glorious RUM! never leave home with it!)

and just so you know I did not enter this thread with intention t' put down the fantasy artist, I recently finished me own render I call "Bathtub Pirates" - a neked V4 wearing not but a tricorn while sitting in a tin bathtub on deck when suddenly her toy pirate ship comes t' life (not suitable for posting here), and I am currently working on one with a V4 standing in a crow's nest with nothing on but a bikini bottom that has a skull-n-bones emblem on th' front (true pirates NEVER 'wore' the skull and cross bones, actually the typical Skull and Cross Bones is a Disney design, it never really existed, the 'real' desing was a skull with crossed swords belonging to Jack Rackham (Calico Jack), amoung others, some of which did have 'crossed bones' but not like Disney's)

Quote - Ye will Not be sorry!

For sure there you got me ... :laugh:

A really impressive list of ressources.

It's indeed a very interesting material and theme but I'm not as historical or scientic to go such deep into that subjects.
I would place myself between your 2 first categories ... doing work in the first cat if possible and having interest in watching the second one.
But never would be involved in argueing in discussions you mentioned between cat 2 and cat 2 ...

There are lot's of themes of today and having impact to the future where each heavily driven discussion is worth.
But as far as historie is touched if there is no absolutely sure proof and nobody is found who was there personally, I don't see any necessity for whatever type of war. There may be several opinions but every with good arguments and then it have to be excepted that it can't be prooven completely. To be understood right that's not like the argument that earth exists only 6000 year.
That's a thing of mixing religion and science. But for example if boot's are piratelike or not is only a thing of given resources and their interpretation and, maybe, without new unfound ressources will never coming to the one real and true solution ... if this is really existing.

And on other hand if all things are analysed absolutely into deep where will be the room for tales and legends.

For example, I don't know if you are aware of the Northsea pirate Klaus Störtebecker. Was long before GAoP.
There is the legend that on the day of his execution he made deal with the high magistrate. All that of his crony should be amnestied there he could go past if killed.
So he was beheaded and legend tells us that we walked along without his head passing six (this number differs by source) of his men.
So what is truth ?? Science is telling us that beheading immediately (in milliseconds) will cut all nerves and besides some uncontrolled convulsions there is no activity possible.
So with look to the old methods beheading was done while on knees or sitting. And than how should one standup and walk at least 3, 4, 5, ... meters. So with look to the medical science it's impossible.
But that legend made Störtebecker a peoples hero cause while being beheaded he took a last care for his men ... ok, not all but some ... if true ... who will say ...

So as a modern and rational man I'm sure he lost his head and fall down and full stop. But on other hand ... huh ... what a scary but honorable legend of a lately fine guy ...
Ah, and as far as I know it's not reported if the beheading was done with a sword or an axe ... so there is place for a experts dispute ... but is it really of interest or is the legend as such above suspicion ?

So where would menkind be without all tales and legends on the one hand and all proofs and expertises on the other.
And with cheaper pc's and 3D software all can make their own interpretations of legends and expertise ... the one is named fantasy and the other science ... maybe two sides of the same medal ...

Three cheers to all that cock-and-bull stories ...

There's a .3ds flintlock here. As it's a .3ds file it wont be Poser rigged.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=109455

Quote - "There may be several opinions but every with good arguments and then it have to be excepted that it can't be prooven completely. To be understood right that's not like the argument that earth exists only 6000 year.
That's a thing of mixing religion and science...."

Aye, both science and religion as well as culture tend to drive modern man's views of what life way back 'when' may have been where there are not but 'clues' and no solid evidence. Even th' treasured paintings and drawings that some historians hold as basis for their "solid facts" are often found to be not but an artist's "interpretation" and not really something he even saw or drew for facts that he well knew. Example: if an artist of period was painting with intent to sell to higher class (which obviously he would as only the higher class had money) then he would 'dress it up' in order to 'appeal' to the higher class; in the case of a 'pirate painting', if indeed the pirates he was painting wore beards but the painting was intended for a palace of well reknown where such personal grooming would be frowned up then he would paint the rouges clean shaven. In case of religion and culture; if he intended his painting for a family of strong values (lets say white English Christians) then he may leave out several of the actual rouges such as blacks and and any so-called 'heathen' symbols that any may have actually worn (remember that in the 1600s and 1700s the English loathed Irish and Germans and call us...'er, them UnGodly heathens).

As I listen t' some of these hard core historians argue over what was 'common' and what was 'not common' I often find that the one doing the argument is 'assuming' that the pirates of topic are of their own favored group, often assuming it is an English group of pirates. True that information discovered finds that even on a so-called "democrate pirate ship" of multi-cultured pirates, there was a social order; pirate ships known to take on black slaves as crewmembers from a captured slave ship where seldom truely treated as "equals" on a predominatly English crewed priate ship. But of course, this information is only from the few crews that were 'captured alive'; based upon the knowledge known in whole such as ship's Codes, the whole concept of Democracy (which in the era was still alien and shocked England, France, as well as Spain that men would act in such a way) would stand that some crews may have taken on a more pure 'democratic' or 'everyone onboard truely is Equal' approach.

Quote - "But for example if boot's are piratelike or not is only a thing of given resources and their interpretation and, maybe, without new unfound ressources will never coming to the one real and true solution ... if this is really existing"

Aye again, even th' boot on Whydah has historians making the statement "just because a boot was found on a ship known to have been captured and sailed by pirates does not prove they actually Wore them for the ship previously was a slave ship and was ocupied by other 'passangers' of gentelmen and ladies of renoun. Therefore the single boot found may have belonged to one of them and never have actually had a 'pirate's' foot placed inside"

As well as the argument that arouse for the information that "entire shelves of boots" where discovered in the escavation at Tortuga, it was argued "Tortuga was owned and controled by different countries as different times, also the boots may have only been made for those living on the island, not for the sea goers that came and went from port." Arguing that they were for the horse riders among the island inhabitants and that there is still no "proof" that any pirate ever set sail with a pair on he's foot.
Even the few paintings of the period that do show pirates with boots have been dismissed by hard cores that they were simply "artist's interpretations and glamorizations". It can get quite comical when listening to them argur over details in a painting; here you have an actual painting or drawing from someone who lived in 1650, and now you have a 'hard core' demanding that certain tiny details are fiction and figments of the artist's imagination and another saying "if an artist of the era was able to imagine it then how can you say he had not actually seen it?" - yet neither can produce absolute PROOF to back up their opinion of what they are looking at (not unless one can produce a printed document of the same era by someone who either backs up or dismisses the artist's work).

Quote - "Klaus Störtebecker"

Aye, I know the story o' Captain Klaus Störtebecker well, I be half German meself now (Irish on me mum's side).
Ture, legend is hard t' dismiss with the masses....however, on the side of legend, one also has to remind themself that not all what is now was then. Opium, strong ale, and other influances could indeed change what simple 'science' tells us could not be. Could a man who was seriously dopped up on Opium, wine, ale, and Lord knows what else actually pull off such a feat? Ok, perhaps he did not actaully walk past 17 men total (some say Blackbeard's headless body swam around the ship 7 times, others say just 3 times) but could his headless body have managed just a few staggaring steps, say enough to get past one or two men? If so, then from that could easily arise the various versions of the legend as they are told today. And yes, you would still have the modern day scientist claiming "That is impossible because....reproduce it or I refuse to believe it...show me a video or it did not happen...."
On the side of Blackbeard, while I me self do not believe in the story of his body swiming around the ship, but to take from the accepted facts surrounding his death and use them to lend support to Klaus Störtebecker's; how did Blackbeard manage to continue to fight with so many pistol shots and sword wounds? Why did he not fall long before he actually did?
Again, most likely (as expalined by the 'hard cores' and 'scientists') due to strong rum and opium. (remember, liquer back then was even more strong then the strongest brewed today, and NO country had 'regulations' as to how strong it could be. Read up on how Rum got it's name)

Quote - "Three cheers to all that cock-and-bull stories ..."

Aye, three cheers indeed! Tis for thus reason I call a few Jack Sparrow impersonators me 'friend' while some of those 'hard cores' I refer to hate them with a passion and constantly rag on them and wish them away, even try to ban them from faire and festivals. What they do not stop and recognize is that Disney's Jack Sparrow is what breathed new life into the very thing they make a living at, Jack is what has made them much coin in recent years where the pot was starting to run rather dry. If it where not for the flashy, bucket boot clad, drunken wandering addlepates such as Jack Sparrow then he's own wallet would be much thiner today and the gates as well as calander of "Priate Fests" would be rather sparse and no where near rivaling that of "Ren Faire" (but then, even the Ren Faire ciruits have this same battle going on behind stage that many of the public are not even aware of...me own younger sibling was once a SCA member but said he got fed up with the bickering and lost interest)

As matter o' fact, this whole topic I could carry on into a more recent battle that has begun in the reenactor's guild of pirates; Sword Play
There is a rather vicious battle going on right now between Stage Actors and Reality Players
For some reason they just can not understand how they each compliment one another....so the battle continues...but that is not 'art related' so I will refrain from conversing in that direction in this port.

Quote - ...On the side of Blackbeard, while I me self do not believe in the story of his body swiming around the ship, but to take from the accepted facts surrounding his death and use them to lend support to Klaus Störtebecker's; how did Blackbeard manage to continue to fight with so many pistol shots and sword wounds? Why did he not fall long before he actually did?
Again, most likely (as expalined by the 'hard cores' and 'scientists') due to strong rum and opium. (remember, liquer back then was even more strong then the strongest brewed today, and NO country had 'regulations' as to how strong it could be. Read up on how Rum got it's name)...

By all accounts, Blackbeard wasn't a small man. While some accounts could be simple exaggeration, it's likely he was a large man for his day. The bigger you are, the harder it is to get to your vitals.

As far as bodies walking without heads - It's "possible." However, there would be no motor control to speak of, no mechanism to communicate "balance" and certainly not much in the way of coordinated effort of motion in a single direction. Movement would be dictated by "shock" firings of muscles and, perhaps, some specialized areas in the spine that some have suggested act as relay centers. (something I read not too long ago but can't find a link on atm) I suppose something like that could be shortcircuited by a beheading and fire off in some sort of chain reaction that would mimic movement. But, as far as standing up? No, that is so unlikely as to be practically considered as impossible. While the inner ear does provide the majority of our sense of balance, muscle resistance also helps. Yet, there is nothing below the neck that I know of that can interpret that resistance and make sense of it. A fish flopping on the deck would have more of a chance of establishing itself as being "ambulatory" than a headless corpse.

Then... there's the true story of Mike the Headless Chicken. :) If you haven't heard of him before, take a look, amazing stuff! http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/index.php

Quote - As far as bodies walking without heads - It's "possible."

Completely right ... but this belongs to persons beheaded in a battle for example. So they have been walking while killed and the muscles followed and worked in the same manner as before for some seconds.

There was some 20 year's back a report of an accident between a truck and a motorcyclist. The truck was loaded with steal slabs. One of them slipped aside while the motorcyclist overhauled the truck and he was straight beheaded. But he finished overhauling, sitting upright on his engine.
Ok, next curve he didn't master and the truck was in trench just before ... poor driver got the shock of his life ...

Quote - Then... there's the true story of Mike the Headless Chicken. :)

I know the story ... and have to laugh everytime. It remembers me to my youth there I used to sail on a lake nearby. The chimney sweeper of the village at the lake lived in a house around the corner and we meet often. Once he got a chicken from a farmer ... small trade between craftsmen, you know. The farmer had told him to hold the chicken tight while killing it AND also some time more. But our friend ... ok, he went to his garage doorway, killed the chicken and laid it down ... and the chicken, headless, run up and away, straight into the garage.
The garage was newly painted just the day before ... clean bright white ... WHAT a real mess, looked like a big massacre ... :laugh:

So headless chickens are no point of discussion ... though the time mike did his headless live is really astonishing. Maybe there is some truth in the story that some people are only having their head to avoid to carry their hat in the hand ... :lol:

Forum: Freestuff

Subject: Pirate muskets desired