I recently asked for votes to decide what figure to work on next. I let the voting run for a bit over a week and it seems that you the forumites would msot like to see improvements to the Millenium dog. https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2894540&page_number=2#msg4232187

Well I've had a look at the Mildog LE (free version), the mildog (pay version) and the Classic Canines collection of maps.

I also crosschecked the existing mildog morphs with the AKC's list of top 50 dog breeds.

Issues I see: The mildog needs helps with many bend areas

The mildog needs scaling dials and the existing breed MOR's hooked up with suitable scaling per breed

The classic canine maps need bump and disp maps as well as shaders that take advantage of new render features

The Mildog is made with the head as one piece, it really needs a jawbone added, which can be done without altering the geometry but will need a new cr2

To create some shaggier breeds, two sets of conforming furs in medium and long need to be made

Some breeds will need specialized displacement maps for coats (Airedale, classic cut poodles, scotties)

con - Since the Mildog version with the morphs is pay only, and has no INJ channels , the additional morphs will need to be added via a readscripting method (don't worry, end users don't even know its happening)

con - I'm not about to make a bunch of conformers free. if I make those, I will make them and the longhaired breeds as a commercial product

Possible approach for this project:

part 1 - make the joint fix morphs, scaling morphs and added jawbone on the free mildog LE. Make any added morphs for smooth coated breeds from the top 50. make this part a freebie

part 2 - Go over the Classic Canines map and MOR set and create new shaders for the coats, as well as a new cr2 with altered morphs to incorporate the changes in part 1, adding scaling to the Classic Canines morphs as needed. Again by doing this with readscripting, the end user will not need to decode anything or even know its happening as long as they have pay version of the Mildog installed. Without the morphs installed, the readscript will do nothing exciting and act just like part 1. Free part

Part 3 - Make the new conformers for long haired breeds (golden retrievers, poodles, scotties, saluki, etc). Make the morphs for longhaired breeds. Make two readscripted cr2's , one to work with the mildog LE and one for the Part 2 adjusted cr2. New maps for all breeds. This will be a pay product, and probably in the 10 to 15 range.

Possible issues: stacking readscripts can be fiddly. Adding a new jawbone will be troublesome and may need weightmapping, which would restrict usage of the ImprovedMilDog to newer versions of poser. Making new maps for all the covered breeds, original morphs and any I add.

Anyone have anything to add that they think should be addressed about this figure?

For information: the AKC list of top 50 dog breeds. http://www.akc.org/news/the-most-popular-dog-breeds-in-america/

I would also be adding Saluki, whippets, greyhounds, Italian greyhounds, irish wolfhounds, dire wolf, hyenae, wolves, foxes, african wild dog and the thylacine.

Lyrra

attached are a pair of test renders - one is the mildog white wolf map as is, and one with shader setting shamelessly nicked from EZSkin2 and fiddled with.

With all of the needed work you have discussed, wouldn't it just be better to create a new dog character. I believe that the current MillDog is well past it's prime and is extremely dated, I have tried to use the dogs in renders, however they always look rather fake. I feel that spending the time fixing something that is at it's core is broken is wasted time. Just my thoughts. I would really like to see a new dog with expanded features and make use of a real bone structure.

I have a few models -- coyote, wolf, bear -- that use Poser's dynamic hair for fur, and the results are excellent. It seems that would be the way to go, rather than make conformers. The downside being that it's probably more work to make convincing fur (especially for umpteen different breeds) out of Poser hair, and it does take a million years to render if you use IDL.

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white wolf don't even resemble a wolf in my opinion looks more like a dog

Yay!

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i like the ideas you have they sound good and would improve the looks of Mil dog

Good Choice, Lyrra!

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A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

Lyrra posted at 6:32AM Tue, 06 October 2015

I would also be adding Saluki, whippets, greyhounds, Italian greyhounds, irish wolfhounds, dire wolf, hyenae ....

Do you have a specific species of hyena in mind? I currently have a vested interest in the spotted hyena and aardwolf, myself.

dynamic furs - yes they are possible. but would only be usable in poser and frankly are a pain in the butt to set up for distribution. Plus of course the load-n-render users panic and flee when you say 'dynamic'.

Making a new dog - the goal here is to take a model that is nearly unusable these days and make it look better. Certainly I could make a whole new mesh, and some day I probably will but right now I have this thing with 30 maps already so I might as well shine it up. Plus this gives me the chance to really see what is going on with the model, what works and what doesn't, which will help me later when I go to make my own.

White wolf - the TEXTURE is the white wolf texture shown on the unmorphed dog mesh. Not the wolf morph, so yes it does look like a dog. If it didn't I would be worried! The point was to look at what newer shaders would do to the existing maps. I nicked the EZskin shader base and copy pasted it over tot he mildog and slid the dog maps in. You can see the fur surface is very different, it could benefit from a proper bump map. The mouth, teeth and eyes also render very differently. I think new eye maps are needed, but the teeth look lovely

Dog 2? - I have no idea, but at this point I can presume that if they had one it would be DAZ Studio only with resource eating DSON files for poser. I think I'll pass. Possibly Hive might make one, which I would be interested in seeing, since they did such a great job with their horse. But at the moment this is the dog I've got, so I'll see what I can make of it.

LD - I said 'hyenae' meaning the whole phyla. That means making a basic hyena ratio bodyshape as well as any morphs needed for specific morphological characteristics (spinal ridge, etc). These could then be used to spin up MOR settings for specific hyenae subtypes. I'm not going to make one thing, when I could make tools to make ten things with the same amount of effort :) After that its a matter of taking a base tawny coat and adding the spots as needed for the coats. Presumably one could use these morphs for fantasy canids as well as prehistoric. (wargs? giant war dogs?) I intend to make the thylacine as well, even though its a marsupial, since it seems to have a cult following.

Am I the only person who bought the alien dog / alien cat morphs and maps from Poser Pros a zillion years ago? I found them tucked away in my animals folder. I'm going to make new mats for them as well, but probably won't make a freebie with those unless more than 3 other people have the morphs lol

LD has asked for Aardwolves and Spotted Hyena. Does anyone else want to make a request for a canine that isn't on the AKC list, or already mentioned by me?

Any python scripters watching? I'd love to talk to you about a dial-a-spot python script and a dial-a-mutt python script (texture and morphs respectively)

LM

Predatron's Warhound (at Daz) could be morphed into a Hyena rather easily I think. It's a good mesh. Curious why the addition of a jaw actor would require WMing, but I don't have the dog so I don't know what the topology is like. How about an articulated tongue, does it have this? I'll have to track down the LE and take a look, I think the only canine types I have are the WarHound, the basic Poser Dog, and the Gargoyle Hound...I have more werewolves! Lol.

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The mildog appeared to have been modeled with its mouth closed. This makes adding new rigging to it problematic at best. Honestly I don't know if it is possible to add a jaw bone to it to make opening the mouth rigging instead of a morph, but it's worth looking at. Currently the mouth open, howl and etc are all done with morphs. It may not be possible to set up a traditional ball-and-stick rigged bone to open the mouth without breaking the teeth and tongue.

The easiest method of course would be to assign the lower jaw, teeth and so forth to a new group and add the bone for that, but this would a) break every existing morph and b) mean the improved dog with new obj would require RTEncoding so 90% of users would flee in terror rather than read directions, open a program and click three times.

I did look at the warhound but I don't own it. I think I have the gargoyle hound around someplace ... that is another one that could use new shaders :) who has time?

I'm not sure about an articulated tongue, I'm pretty sure its all morphs as well. That again would require regrouping, new bones, and RTEncoding et al.

LM

Whatever approach you ultimately take on this project, Lyrra, I'm willing to contribute morphs, ERC code, and config files for lipsync compatibility with Poser's Talk Designer, DAZ Studio's built-in lipsync tool, and Mimic. If you want them.

LD I have to confess I know very little about lip syching in poser. I'm presuming you need specific phoneme morphs, movements and so forth?

Breed report Of the top 50 dogs - there are 22 smooth coated breeds, 13 medium and 13 longhaired

plus a handful of each kind that I intend to make anyways : greyhound, whippet, saluki, corgi, afghan hound

I've sorted out another 150 or so dog breeds into short medium and long hair plus six weirdos - show clip poodles, shar-pei, pulik, irish water spaniels, komondor and chinese crested

I'm not going to make all of those, but there are many breeds that won't need special morphs or coats, so those will just need morph spins and easy enough to include. The weirdos like the mop dogs and chinese crested might be out of luck though...

First step though is seeing about that jawbone and then fix morphs/joint corrections

LM

Lyrra posted at 1:10AM Thu, 08 October 2015 - #4232642

LD I have to confess I know very little about lip syching in poser. I'm presuming you need specific phoneme morphs, movements and so forth?

A good variety of phoneme morphs are necessary to make the various mouth / lip shapes. If the jaw is rigged for movement, ERC code can be combined with morph channels to take advantage of that.

Talk Designer uses face pose files (.fc2 or .fcz) for emotional display. With animal characters, posable elements like ears or whiskers can be utilised along with brow movement to create more expressive animations.

A figure-specific config file (written in .XML format) is required to tell the Talk Designer which body parts, channels, and face files to use.

Well the jawbone isn't looking very possible. Due to the way it was modeled its being pretty impossible to get in there and zone the lower jaw parts cleanly. I'll try weightmapping, but it might have to stay with the morphs it already has.

In theory I could open the dogs mouth with the morph, smooth out the issues, export it and bring it back in and add the jawbone then. But at that point the users would have to RTE decode the obj and we all know how that ends (badly)

However the ears zone nicely so I'll be adding ear bones, for more expression there, and probably adding ezpose controls to the tail and possibly torso and neck as well

note to self: when modeling creatures, model the mouth open and the eyes halfway shut

LM

First section of bend fixes - head and neck

Before and after shot, with bend fixes, default map, low quality render

LM

and now with rigged ears. a quick expression test with existing morphs on the mildog LE. again, default tetxure, low res render.

I'm about done with the bend fixes. Well, they could maybe use some coding since right now you have to manually dial them, and there are quite a few

before and after pictures with three poses

Dogs express so much with ear position, I was always surprised how little the mildogs ears could be moved

LM

Progress thus far on Part 1

MilDog Le with new ears rigging, and about a hundred bend morphs

To Do

Add erc to bend morphs, add scaling dials

Try to rig jaw again, this time with poser10 wm and or capsules

Make any new smooth coated dog breed morphs needed

while I'm gathering reference images and compiling lists of breeds, are there any fantasy breeds of canines people would be interested in?
for the kitsune fanciers I'll add textures for LD's bushy tail to match the fox coats so you can add as many as you like

I can't really think of any other fictional dog breeds .. Grims I suppose from Harry Potter but seem to be a black irish wolfhound kind of thing, Dire Wolves which are extinct not fictitious. Is there a canine looking pokemon? I seem to recall seeing one.

It looks like Corgi's may have two dials - one for Cardigan and one for Pembroke as the main differences are the ears and tail

Shortly I will be asking for testers with the mildog LE and/or regular Mildog, with any version of poser, to assist in testing the readscript for part 2 and progress on Part 1. I've had to adjust the smoothing zones on some joints to allow for better scaling and so forth. This will help on extreme bends and scaling for the legs and tail for example. Boy, but dachsunds and corgis have short legs.

In the meantime I will continue talking to myself. LM

Lyrra posted at 4:11AM Wed, 14 October 2015 - #4233639

Is there a canine looking pokemon? I seem to recall seeing one.

Lucario and Zoroark are quite popular, though they're more anthro than you'd probably like for this project.

Also: Houndoom Arcanine Furfrou Vulpix Mightyena Herdier

You're not talking to yourself. There are lurkers like myself with great interest in this project.

I like what I see so far. Thank you muchly, Lyrra.

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Looks VERY good!

thanks for the data LD ... looks like they would best be handled by their own addon set much later, if at all. I'm amused to see certain breed classes though, an obvious terrier type, a sighthound type, and so forth. Arkanine was the one I was thinking of, big orange fluffy thing.

waves at the lurkers It is nice to know that people are interested in this mad project. A certain amount of feedback is nice, even if its just dog pictures lol Or more usefully I guess, pictures you've done with the mildog and discussing what issues you had with it that you think need help. As we all know some bend issues only show up in certain poses, and I sure can't test everything.

todays exciting task .. finding more reference pictures for medium fur and then long fur breeds. I'm getting ref's for all of them now, to make sure I haven't missclassed any breed. yay google.

I ran into this picture the other day ...

http://www.deviantart.com/art/War-dog-and-friend-124919130

There aren't all that many mildog conformers around are there. I think the sled dog set, and a guide dog harness thing. Would anyone be interested in making a fantasy tack set like the picture? and possibly say a dog cart harness (yay victorians), and a modern military gear set?

LM

I've been thinking about making a guide-dog harness, since one of my characters has a seeing-eye dog. And I still need to finish that pet collar with the optional spikes and all those geometry-swapping tags.

While you were looking up reference pics, did you run across the chupacabra? That or an emaciated zombie-dog might make an interesting morph.

Oh, by the way, I've just re-downloaded and re-installed Mimic 3 Pro (though not Poser yet). I had forgotten that the MilDog LE is included in the package.

Geometry swapping is a nuisance. I'd almost say you might be better of making the tags as smart props, so the user can swap them in and out as needed or use on other collars. Since I've been doing renders for print images I've been doing a lot of kitbashing, so I tend to have an eye for 'how can I reuse this' now.

I always thought the chupacabra was more goatlike? perhaps I'm mistaking it for some other cryptid. All the pictures look a lot like a dog with extreme mange. Might not even need a map, just some grotty looking skin shaders. Ditto for zombie dog. I'm not sure if the mildog has an emaciated morph, if not I should add one.

I must say there is a whole run of toy breed dogs which are all small, fluffy, white and fairly interchangeable. Think anyone will mind if I kind of merge them together into 'small fluffy anklebiter' ? lol

I have run into a small snag .. I have the ears rigged on the milDog LE, but apparently readscripts don't handle splicing in new rigging. Which means either I lose the rigged ears or the Mildog version will need to have its cr2 encoded. And if I'm going to go to all the trouble of encoding the MilDog then I'm going to go ahead and group and rig the jawbone. Which means I ought to rig the jaw of the mildogLE so the morph dont break. Which means encoding that too.

Ah decisions.

And in other news .... I found the plot!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plott_Hound

LM

I meant to ask about the ears earlier ... do they have body handles, or will users need to select the ears via the actor menu?

I can provide body handles, if you wish, along with a quick lesson in how to add them to the cr2 as external obj files so you won't have to regroup and encode the blMilDog.obj.

LD the ear handles currently have no geometry, so yes you have to grab them from the actor list. And yes, I already know how to add external geom file calls if needed, but .. right now the readscript process is the issue as it won't transfer new rigging. Since that's a program level thing I think that plan is sunk.

My options are - A) no new rigging but a transparent 'user doesn't see it readscript' to deal with the mildog LE/Mildog (morphed) issue B) rigged ears, regrouped and rigged jaw, but an encoded obj, which the user will have to bestir them selves to unpack at setup for both versions

I did have one bizarre idea which is 90% most likely to crash poser in an exciting way, but I'm going to test that tonight.

As it is to get the legs short enough for corgis and dachsunds I'm going to have to edit the smoo zones on the legs as currently they crumple when the Yscale is reduced severely. I already had to adjust the tails smoo, and the neck crest smoo, so it wont be the first joint edit on this beasty.

In other news Tibetan Mastiifs are slightly terrifying - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Mastiff

LM

Great to see some work being done on the MilDog...is this just for Poser Lyrra? Or would some parts of it work in DS also?

oldingr posted at 5:37PM Fri, 16 October 2015 - #4232517

With all of the needed work you have discussed, wouldn't it just be better to create a new dog character. I believe that the current MillDog is well past it's prime and is extremely dated, I have tried to use the dogs in renders, however they always look rather fake. I feel that spending the time fixing something that is at it's core is broken is wasted time. Just my thoughts. I would really like to see a new dog with expanded features and make use of a real bone structure.

Chris over at Hivewire has mentioned making a dog when he gets chance...they did a great job with Harry(the Hivewire Horse) it's the best horse I've seen so far.

Well thus far most of what I've set up ought to work in DS, however some things wont. For example I'm not entirely sure how well ds will respect the scaling dials I've made. The new shaders of course are poser specific so if someone wanted to set up DS versions that would be a good thing. It is possible to set up a DS only version of the scaling but frankly I'm not terribly interested in supporting DS.

The bend fixes and all the morphs ought to still work properly as will the erc coding in the bendfixes once I've made it. That is all poser 4 era technology, and at its heart DS is poser4 era compatible, so it should be fine. Anything past poser 4 tech and DS gets sulky ... bumpmaps, displacement, shaders, etc etc.

I've had less time to work on this, between making goth christmas card renders for zazzle and having a cold. But I will eventually get there. Just going through all the dog breeds and finding reference pictures for them took a good long while.

LM

Lyrra posted at 7:13PM Fri, 23 October 2015 - #4233737

thanks for the data LD ... looks like they would best be handled by their own addon set much later, if at all. I'm amused to see certain breed classes though, an obvious terrier type, a sighthound type, and so forth. Arkanine was the one I was thinking of, big orange fluffy thing.

waves at the lurkers It is nice to know that people are interested in this mad project. A certain amount of feedback is nice, even if its just dog pictures lol Or more usefully I guess, pictures you've done with the mildog and discussing what issues you had with it that you think need help. As we all know some bend issues only show up in certain poses, and I sure can't test everything.

todays exciting task .. finding more reference pictures for medium fur and then long fur breeds. I'm getting ref's for all of them now, to make sure I haven't missclassed any breed. yay google.

I ran into this picture the other day ...

http://www.deviantart.com/art/War-dog-and-friend-124919130

There aren't all that many mildog conformers around are there. I think the sled dog set, and a guide dog harness thing. Would anyone be interested in making a fantasy tack set like the picture? and possibly say a dog cart harness (yay victorians), and a modern military gear set?

LM

Lyrra I think the big dog with the armor was the very popular Roman Mastiff the Roman Legions brought into battle. There are a few breeds actually banned by US Gov for import but don't remember what they were but found them on Goolge. All big rough looking dogs. When the MilDog came out someone made an Irish Wolfhound kit for it and I believe it was a freebie I got at DAZ. But I never got to install and use it until recently. I looked for it among my thousands of archive CD but with no luck. I love that breed so it would be great to include it if possible. In fact not too long i started a thread here begging for someone with skills who thrived on challenge to create a good war armor for the bulkier MilDog breeds. None jumped in thought someone did create an armor for the LE dog which looks more like a second skin in the store. We also need aside from the DAZ puppies, a full morph set to reduce the dog to a just born figure. I have been trying to make one for my own use and it sucks! In line with that realistic teats and after birth belly morphs for the prospective mother dog to feed her young with. I needed to make a Romulus and Remus image for a client and would have greatly needed these items for the image. Had to do a sheitz load of post work to get the end results. Good snarl/growl morphs. No matter hw much time I spend on these expressions they never come out right. :(

I would love to test this when you get ready. Never done it but i have the full MilDog and all morphs and breed textures for it if that helps.

I did get the WarHound but am frustrated there was no extended support for it after release. Though a fun product to work with, like every other one shot product out there through the years, It would have loved more accessories for it and more character morphs. Definately needs more good textures. Needed to make a white Warhound for an idea i had after seeing that last LOTR film with the big white war dog ridden by that nasty one handed orc. But the closest i could come was pale gray. Yuch!

Little_Dragon posted at 9:45PM Fri, 23 October 2015 - #4233766

I've been thinking about making a guide-dog harness, since one of my characters has a seeing-eye dog. And I still need to finish that pet collar with the optional spikes and all those geometry-swapping tags.

While you were looking up reference pics, did you run across the chupacabra? That or an emaciated zombie-dog might make an interesting morph.

Oh, by the way, I've just re-downloaded and re-installed Mimic 3 Pro (though not Poser yet). I had forgotten that the MilDog LE is included in the package.

I asked for a guide dog harness a few years ago and someone made one. It is out there somewhere. Check here in the freebies section or over at sharecg.

opinion time guys:

Should I leave the maps as is?

Or should I take the opportunity while I am regrouping and rerigging to remap the eyes? currently this is a one map beastie. the eyes are fairly small and thus don't get much detail. If I remap them to the gen4 standard full square map format, then there will be loads more detail. I'm not sure if anyone actually cares about this. It will make existing maps not work on the eyes, although any v4/m4 eyeball maps probably will.

Is there any reason to leave this at one map? do gamedev guys care?

Are there are other map changes anyone is desperate to see? The mapping on this is pretty good, despite its age. There are some very small ares of distortion on the top of the head, genitals, tail base and paws. I might be able to reduce the distortion on the areas, but that in turn would effect all existing maps. Possibly not worth the small improvement at the cost of breaking so much existing work.

Once I get the last of these structural issues sorted then the project will flip into high gear, morphs are pretty fast to make. But I need to get the rigging and groups sorted, so I can convert the existing morph over to the new obj. Then its a matter of going through my pile of dog ref images one by one and making each breed, with any new needed morphs, spinning up a MOR setting for it and coding that with the suitable ERC stuff to make one dial per breed. (because I want to dial a greatdane/Chihuahua/basset hound mix, don't you?)

This will result in both improved handling on the existing dog morphs, the new dog breed morphs, plus a stack of pbm dials which can be used to spin up your own breeds.

However you guys are going to have to decode both the LE and full versions to deal with the new obj file. Sorry. It takes two clicks, you'll just have to read the directions and cope with it :)

In other news I have had a bunch of dev work on a new figure suddenly pop up so I have only 'free' time (evenings, weekends) for this project so it may take a little time. Since I'm not getting paid for this, y'all just get to cope. Sorry :)

while I'm at it .. would anyone put cash into a patreon thing to fund the Improvement series? for which the patrons would get input into what figure to improve and how, and everyone else would get shiny new updates for old and one shot figures (like the wardog). I don't mind working on oddball figures, it can be a challenge and a lot of fun, but the main market is all about TheNewestGirl and her knickers which gets veeeeery boring. Niche figures don't get much in the way of sales, so its not profitable to work on them much. (seriously, flipping burgers would get me 3x the money per hour. very sad) A patreon thing would pay for some of my billable hours and such products would not have to rely as much on my freetime and being in a good mood.

LM

Lyrra posted at 12:25PM Sat, 24 October 2015 - #4235045

opinion time guys:

Should I leave the maps as is?

Or should I take the opportunity while I am regrouping and rerigging to remap the eyes? currently this is a one map beastie. the eyes are fairly small and thus don't get much detail. If I remap them to the gen4 standard full square map format, then there will be loads more detail. I'm not sure if anyone actually cares about this. It will make existing maps not work on the eyes, although any v4/m4 eyeball maps probably will.

Is there any reason to leave this at one map? do gamedev guys care?

Are there are other map changes anyone is desperate to see? The mapping on this is pretty good, despite its age. There are some very small ares of distortion on the top of the head, genitals, tail base and paws. I might be able to reduce the distortion on the areas, but that in turn would effect all existing maps. Possibly not worth the small improvement at the cost of breaking so much existing work.

Once I get the last of these structural issues sorted then the project will flip into high gear, morphs are pretty fast to make. But I need to get the rigging and groups sorted, so I can convert the existing morph over to the new obj. Then its a matter of going through my pile of dog ref images one by one and making each breed, with any new needed morphs, spinning up a MOR setting for it and coding that with the suitable ERC stuff to make one dial per breed. (because I want to dial a greatdane/Chihuahua/basset hound mix, don't you?)

This will result in both improved handling on the existing dog morphs, the new dog breed morphs, plus a stack of pbm dials which can be used to spin up your own breeds.

However you guys are going to have to decode both the LE and full versions to deal with the new obj file. Sorry. It takes two clicks, you'll just have to read the directions and cope with it :)

In other news I have had a bunch of dev work on a new figure suddenly pop up so I have only 'free' time (evenings, weekends) for this project so it may take a little time. Since I'm not getting paid for this, y'all just get to cope. Sorry :)

while I'm at it .. would anyone put cash into a patreon thing to fund the Improvement series? for which the patrons would get input into what figure to improve and how, and everyone else would get shiny new updates for old and one shot figures (like the wardog). I don't mind working on oddball figures, it can be a challenge and a lot of fun, but the main market is all about TheNewestGirl and her knickers which gets veeeeery boring. Niche figures don't get much in the way of sales, so its not profitable to work on them much. (seriously, flipping burgers would get me 3x the money per hour. very sad) A patreon thing would pay for some of my billable hours and such products would not have to rely as much on my freetime and being in a good mood.

LM

Albino. THis is not just white but white with pink showing beneath the fur in particular areas like ears, around the lips nose and mouth belly and genitals and red rim eyes ans very pale eye parts coloration. In fact i have tried making my own from some of the white textures and failed miserably (even worse for the black WarHound if you can imagine). In fact not only for the dog but all the animals DAZ has released especially that crazy beautiful DAZ Donkey! Also, Lynn fixed her beautiful old Bovine set and re-released the whole set FREE here in the free poser forum. But she could not address the stretching of the textures especially on the face of the animals for health reasons. I would pay for having that set of beautifully made creatures brought up to more modern Poser render standards. Fixing the nose of the bulls to make it more realistic and re-texturing it all.

Another beautiful character DAZ and the community have grossly overlooked is the old Zygote Centaur. I have seen someones great efforts at remapping and rebuilding parts of its old body and it looked spectacular. That would be another item I would pay for if done right. Because I have these deep rooted desire and none of the skills to bring them to fruition I shamelessly BEG to see the stuff so I can HAVE it to PLAY with! LOL I just throw ideas and long self absorbed longings at the wall and hope they stick.

I have to say that posers new tools like the Morph Brush and Dependent Parameter Editor really make some of this work much easier. For example to make the bend fix morphs I literally bend the parts I need, and then paint a morph right in place to fix the issues. Then I write down my bend values and use the dependent parameter editor to teach it that when part X is bent to rotation Y then Morph Z needs to be at 1. and tada! all done in poser in a matter of 2 minutes.

It is possible although difficult to alter image colours via shader mojo in poser, but generally its better to go and adjust them in pshop. Unfortunately for my purposes, editing and redistributing existing textures is a no-no. So I can either do map tricks in poser, add maps like fur bump/disp or make all new maps. Alibinos though would need to be a full new custom map. I've done an albino for the milhorse and the trick is to make the hairless skin layer first and then add the hair over top to get the right translucency. Many years ago I made the acquaintance of a very peculiar veterinarian. She herself was an albino and she had collected various albino animals. Feeding time on her tiny farm was very very surreal. It did give me a chance to look up close and personal at a bunch of albino animals of all sorts.

Most of Roxie's morphs took longer for aesthetic reasons. For example the Olympic Muscle morph took some time and many pictures of really terrifying women and honestly I've seen better poser muscle morphs done. But I think it's decent enough for the two people who will use it and be happy it exists at all :)

Thanks btw for reminding me to add a teats morph if I can. I've stuck it into my todo list. I've already made some squish morphs for the boy dogs parts for floor contact and the like. There has been some requests of girl morphs for the LE dog, but that morph is already included in the dog starter pack morphs and I do try not to make a free item that directly competes with a commercial product. I feel thats rude.

I haven't seen the old zygote centaur in ages. I used to have it, but I'd need to dig around for my old cds. Chances are I've lost it though. There is a new one, sagytyrros? something like that, at DAZ. The base figure is um .. not terribly attractive , but there are some nice character morphs for it. And seeing what BH did for alyson2 with the anastasia morph, you should never completely discount any base mesh unless its actually nonfunctional.

I'll hopefully be putting in a few hours work on the dog today and tomorrow.

I'm going to look at the patreon thing and see if I can figure out how it works. If anyone has used it as a creator I wouldn't mind talking to you a bit about some of the back stage details like file distribution and the like.

LM

Hi Lyrra

I have the Sagitarios. It isn't a bad mad figure but the faces are dreadful. I picked up the whole kit-and-dapoodle and even with the add-on faces pak the faces suck. The hands are really too big and w/o a size adjust morph are a pain but the functions are otherwise ok. Needs some boy parts but I have worked that out. I love that Zygote Centaur and considering when it was made it was a nice character.I hope you can find it. If you bought it I am sure DAZ can be convinced of re-sending it to you. I do that sort of thing with them all the time. I don't know if you remember the old Zygote Gremlin? They remapped it and fixed those weird feet and redistributed it for free for a short time to previous owners after I begged them. I remember the same thing might have happened when I started that Loooong thread there in the forums about the old Zygote Centaur and how they had abandoned a perfectly good model. Some folks wanted to work with it so, if I remember correctly (and please don't quote me here because my head on longer works) for a short time they re-released it via the thread so everyone would have a copy to work with to contribute to the group effort of reworking it. Of course though there was a nice group participation in the thread and a lot of promises as usual in most of these group flare-up it all fizzy-fizzed. I was crushed.. Funny...I was going to ask about the squish morphs for the dog but was a bit shy about that, didn't know what you would think! :) You mentioned Girl morphs what is that? I don't remember any girl morphs for the MilDog? I remember the morph to make the boy parts disappear but I don't recall any girl parts appearing in their stead?

Did you have any thoughts on the Bovine Set by Lynn? After reading your last post I assume that will be a no-can-do though if Lynn was asked she might agree. And here is Lynn's

http://www.lynescreations.com/lynesfree2.htm

You know if all this does work...ANY of this....and the sets look good I wold be interested in paying for a new improved expansion pak for a good price. The Dogs, the Sagitarios, The Bovines, Zygote Centaur.

Are you familiar with Mankahoo's work? His store name here is Ali and he creates some wonderful hair products. But on his web site ONLY he has some beautiful figures. A Centauress named Cindy that though beautifully crafted desperately needs some character morphs, body and face morphs and some new texturing options. I have tried re-texturing her but he mapped her so the horse and human body parts are one mesh which is a pain. Here is his addie if you are interested:

www.mankahoo.com/

You mentioned muscle morphs and morphs for who and Roxie's morphs? What Roxie's Morphs? Not familiar with either. Commercial products or freebies?

I know Lynne, in fact I contacted her before starting this project, just to check and see if she had anything planned for the mildog (sadly no). So when I have time I can ask her about some of her sets. I actually bought some when they were new, and I've been downloading them now as she puts up the free versions. However this one and my other (paying) work will take some time.

I did a little net diving and I found the centaur thread via the wayback machine, but the files alas are gone.

Cindy looks very sweet and the mesh looks good. So I could probably do a lot with her given the time. That is one of the reasons I'm considering a patreon thing, mostly to fund buying figures like that and the naga lady also on that site. It is something to think about.

Roxie is the poser 10 female figure. I recently made a large Improvement set for her, my second such set. It includes bend fixes, scaling dials, aging dials, baby and male morph, and so forth and so on. You can do a lot with a decent base mesh if you are willing to push at it a bit. It would take me a couple weeks to do the same treatment for a figure like Cindy I think.

Roxie working thread: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2892798

The release thread: https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2894334

My first improvement project was for Jessi1 - http://www.sharecg.com/v/73646/view/11/Poser/Jessi-1-Improved She seriously needed help on bend issues, but was a sweet figure aside from that

Although it is nice to work with a group on a co-op project, unfortunately many forumites are, shall we say, volatile personalities. I find it easier to do the main part of the work myself, and then anyone else who wants to can make support or additional files that can be launched separately. This way if one person gets frustrated or has an attack of Real Life and leaves with all their toys, then the whole project doesn't suffer. In the case of Roxie I know that a few other people are working on RI compatible support items for the figure now, and if we are lucky more will show up soon.

LittleDragon has already volunteered to set up some mimic and lipsynching/animation stuff for the mildog once I have it more together. And I think someone else mentioned additional morphs. I'm perfectly happy if other people want to make addons for it. I figured that one I had the base maps done in pshop I would release those psd's as freebie-use-only MR's ( backwards I know) just to encourage more free skins be made.

I'm perfectly happy if people want to send me morphs, skins, poses or whatnot to roll into the project main release files - but they can feel free to release them on their own as well.

LM

My last post was a very poor example,(being it didn't include a mill dog at all...lol) here is an example of the work I have done to the textures thus far...

fritters56 - looking pretty good! perhaps a smidge on the shiny side. Something has happened to the nose. I'm guessing you used displacement ? I've only done a tiny bit of fiddling on the shaders so far. I figured for the smooth coated and short coated breeds I am going to make a shared displacement and bump map for surface detail. I experimented a bit with dynamic fur but I'm not terribly happy with any of my results.

Unfortunately the existing maps are all pretty small by todays standards. Unless the original artist kept larger psd files and is willing to resave them out (very very doubtful) I will see what I can manage with shaders, and then make some of my own maps to get more detail in there.

Still arguing with the jaw rigging. Theres never enough time in the day is there?

LM

I forgot to add a bit of displacement to the nose to make it equal out, I am looking forward to playing around with your work...

I've no idea if I got this thing set up right ...

https://www.patreon.com/LyrraMadril?ty=h

and now I'm going to go and coax the new obj for the dog into poser and get this jaw rigging done finally

LM

aha! got it

I had to not only regroup the jaw, but re position it in the obj and lengthen it so it matched the top jaw.

So both LE and full versions will have RTE coded files

Anyone making (or who had made) morphs effecting the head will need to convert them to the new obj grouping and shape to use them on the Improved version. sorry guys.

benefits - now has fully rigged ears with groups, and fully rigged jaw with group

Costs - RTE coding files needed for distribution, breaks all existing morphs (I'm converting everything that comes stock). Some existing morphs are being deleted as no longer needed )open mouth, howl, etc)

LM

I have not given up on the mill dog, while true it's close up days are just about gone, I keep fighting to use them just one more time. Yes those eyes, the jaw, the paws all need major over hauls...But who can resist wanting to use them just one more time....

Is the Mill dog worth saving? I simply say this....

well I've gotten all my erc hooked up for the bend fixes. I think.

Before and after on the same pose.

LM

Hey Lyrra I think I mentioned the dog armor somewhere on one of my unforgiveably long posts here (so sorry!) Found this image which I think would be a good sample. Also, adding a simple padded/quilted matching saddle to throw over the armor as a smart prop would be sweet.

fritters56 posted at 6:22PM Mon, 26 October 2015 - #4235328

Is the Mill dog worth saving? I simply say this....

nice image.

Lyrra posted at 6:23PM Mon, 26 October 2015 - #4235297

aha! got it

I had to not only regroup the jaw, but re position it in the obj and lengthen it so it matched the top jaw.

So both LE and full versions will have RTE coded files

Anyone making (or who had made) morphs effecting the head will need to convert them to the new obj grouping and shape to use them on the Improved version. sorry guys.

benefits - now has fully rigged ears with groups, and fully rigged jaw with group

Costs - RTE coding files needed for distribution, breaks all existing morphs (I'm converting everything that comes stock). Some existing morphs are being deleted as no longer needed )open mouth, howl, etc)

LM

does this mean all the original breed morphs as well as on-board ++ morphs ad poses paks? What about the original texture .PP2 morphs/MATs?

progress has progressed!

part 1 - mildog LE, bend fixes with erc - done. Rigged jaw - done. Rigged ears - done

Part 2 - mildog starter kit/classic canines - morphs converted to new obj. All mildog LE improvements included

That leaves new shaders for both parts, and part 3 - new conformers, new breeds, new morphs

So msot of the fixit part is done.

Attached are some images of the improved mildog, with various breeds and proper scaling hooked into the morphs. I used the AKC breed heights, and a ruler to sort that so when you dial the great dane its great dane sized and the min pin is 11 inches tall. Tiiiiny dogs. Default shaders, terrible render. But enough to show the heights and all

Lyrra

looks nice

Very nice. When do you think it will be available?

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Oh wow!! I'd been hoping someone would pick up the Mil Dog! glee! Just being able to move the ears is huge, it's so hard for a dog to show emotion without those.

This will not be available any time soon I'm afraid.

My next step is to make the fur conformers for part 3. Those will need to be modeled, mapped and rigged and then morphs to fit the existing morphs.

After the fur is built, with a basic set of textures for transparency, then I can build all the new breeds. This will be mostly ERC compilations and not single morphs - that is to say I'll be making a lot of partial body morphs and adding controller dials per breed. This is similar to how the current German Shorthair breed is a composite, and uses various other morphs to achieve the look in the current MAT/MOR file. I've coded it to a single control dial, and that is how I intend to create all the new dog breeds on my list. This cuts down considerably on memory needed for the figure.

After I have made all my new partial and breed morphs, and the new bump and disp maps, then I can split the MilDog LE and new smooth coated breads out and release parts 1 and 2. I could in theory release it right now, but it would have no new breeds maps or morphs at all.

Part three will contain the new fur conformers, all the new long haired breeds, and new shaders for all breeds and will be a marketplace item.

In addition, I will make the layered psd file for my textures available on my Patreon for a low donation. This donation will go towards buying zbrush and other tools.

About the tongue - I've lost all the tongue morphs. This is a nuisance. I'm debating the merits of rigging the tongue but I need to look at the mesh and see if it allows for it. There will be some solution, since it's needed for expressions and phonemes.

Testers: I would like several testers for the Mildog LE and several who have the MilDog Starter kit and Classic Canines mat/mor packages. You will need the RTE encoder/decoder. Please send me a pm asking to test the mildog. Thanks!

Lyrra

Thank you a Million times for doing this! The Mil Dog was in serious need of work..thank you!

there .. tongue all rigged. since I was in there I added a new material for it. Any existing materials will need to have the settings copied from InnerMouth to Tongue. This one needed all weightmaps to work at all, so I'm not entirely sure how will this will be read by DS or older versions of poser. I am including movement morphs on the tongue, so a certain amount of motion based on those will be available no matter what.

Lyrra

Uvmaps.

The dog as it stands has several less than optimal uvmapped areas - the tongue, teeth and claws are not entirely unwrapped. This was very common on models of this era, and considering the tools of the time, very understandable.

If I change the UVs then all existing maps will no longer work.

I can make the cr2 in 2 versions - Classic and New UV's. This may cause some confusion, but I'd like to think anyone who has gotten this far can figure it out.

Would people like improved UV's for this?

Attached is a uvlayout snapshot fo the existing uvs. Red is squished, blue is stretched. A certain amount of this is unavoidable, but as you can see a lot of parts overlap themselves and that would be cleaned up, and a great deal of the distortion on the head and feet would be smoothed out.

Lyrra

new bump map! renders before and after changing shaders and adding a new bump on the default skin

afters

I don't think that if people are willing to do the RTE that re-mapped uvs would be that much more work for the end user. This coming along beautifully.

seems to get the new and improved is a good thing. what might be a good solution, if the end user wants t keep all the original dog stuff well that is good. but, if the new better-fied version he can load that instead from the runtime. as long as the names are different and the two versions can work together i see no problem. the only thing i am worried about is the encoder. on mu newer mac i have had problems running the application. am going to hate buying this only to find i will not be able to surmount this issue. :(

I think it looks really good. Only criticism I have is that the lower jaw seems to be too thin and seems to be translated oddly in the z axis, not sure if that's an issue with the original mesh or was brought about by the fixes/additional rigging. Any thoughts on improving Woody the Poser mannequin? Just kidding, although I'm considering doing something along the lines of surrogate conformers or a custom geom switching .cr2... just because, well, I'm a weirdo. Lol. Fantastic work Lyrra!

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EldritchCellar posted at 4:08PM Thu, 05 November 2015 - #4237109

I think it looks really good. Only criticism I have is that the lower jaw seems to be too thin and seems to be translated oddly in the z axis, not sure if that's an issue with the original mesh or was brought about by the fixes/additional rigging. Any thoughts on improving Woody the Poser mannequin? Just kidding, although I'm considering doing something along the lines of surrogate conformers or a custom geom switching .cr2... just because, well, I'm a weirdo. Lol. Fantastic work Lyrra!

Would like Woodie changed. I have used the P4 male head and the P4 Male hands to replace those on Woodie for some needed realistic mannequin renders I needed to do, sort of a MayaDoll like mannequin. An out of the box ready to work with Woodie and female version would be swell.

Was thinking a female version. My head is all over the place with "maybe I'll". Already have a full plate. We'll see, I imagine a geometry switching .cr2 would be distributable, long as the replacement parts are original .objs, it's a very basic iconic Poser fig, not a lot of hoops to worry about. As far as RTE goes, I use RTEncoder Java on an older Mac with no problem, don't know about Intel Macs though... maybe a Parallel or some such?

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Shante, here's the link for all the versions of RTEncoderPy (not Java, must have gotten that mixed up with some other Mac ported poser strangeness). It says they have a download for Intel Mac, not sure if it works and it only can decode/encode version 1 files. Not sure what Lyrra is using to encode. Last time I used RTEncoder was for PitKlad's Posette Nea... what ever happened to PitKlad?

RTEncoderPy

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EldritchCellar posted at 12:48PM Sat, 07 November 2015 - #4237132

Shante, here's the link for all the versions of RTEncoderPy (not Java, must have gotten that mixed up with some other Mac ported poser strangeness). It says they have a download for Intel Mac, not sure if it works and it only can decode/encode version 1 files. Not sure what Lyrra is using to encode. Last time I used RTEncoder was for PitKlad's Posette Nea... what ever happened to PitKlad?

RTEncoderPy

what happened to Posette Nea for that matter? ;)

Yeah, mysterious... Pitklad's stuff no longer on ShareCG. Started modeling that stuff for the Poser mannequin Woody btw. Barring some life disaster and other projects it should come together pretty quick. Anyway, don't mean for OT. Sorry, Lyrra.

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this project is currently holding while I work like mad on 6 products for Poser 11's Paul and Pauline. (2 devkits, 2 mag kits, 2 huge morph sets) As soon as I get those done I'll get back to finish this. Might be a week or two.

Shante - you will be able to download the Improved Mildog LE and Improved Mildog free. The pay version will have additional fur conformers and breeds and require the free items be installed. Worst comes to it you can screencap a picture of your DAZ order for the mildog as proof of ownership and I can send you the uncoded obj.

Mac RTEencoder - No idea. Hopefully the linked version still works for you guys.

About the Jaw - I had to reposition the jaw to rig it. I used the Open Mouth morph as a starter and adjusted the jaw length so it fit properly when closed, then exported that obj to use as the new base obj. I need to crosscheck the beast against anatomy charts, and see if there are any adjustments needed, at that time if the jaw is too thin I'll add a morph to adjust it.

Progress - started new unwrapped uvs using UVLayout. Made a basic bump map for the free parts of this project and set all the MATs for the Classic Canine maps with new shaders. Todo: fur conformers, new breeds

Lyrra the OverWorked

shante posted at 1:07PM Sun, 08 November 2015 - #4237383

what happened to Posette Nea for that matter? ;)

Some of Pitklad's freestuff is on Planit3d.com, including NeaP4. I recall he was working on an update last year...

EDIT; here's the thread. No download link, tho'.... https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2879805

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Lyrra posted at 2:30PM Fri, 20 November 2015 - #4237463

this project is currently holding while I work like mad on 6 products for Poser 11's Paul and Pauline. (2 devkits, 2 mag kits, 2 huge morph sets) As soon as I get those done I'll get back to finish this. Might be a week or two.

Shante - you will be able to download the Improved Mildog LE and Improved Mildog free. The pay version will have additional fur conformers and breeds and require the free items be installed. Worst comes to it you can screencap a picture of your DAZ order for the mildog as proof of ownership and I can send you the uncoded obj.

Mac RTEencoder - No idea. Hopefully the linked version still works for you guys.

About the Jaw - I had to reposition the jaw to rig it. I used the Open Mouth morph as a starter and adjusted the jaw length so it fit properly when closed, then exported that obj to use as the new base obj. I need to crosscheck the beast against anatomy charts, and see if there are any adjustments needed, at that time if the jaw is too thin I'll add a morph to adjust it.

Progress - started new unwrapped uvs using UVLayout. Made a basic bump map for the free parts of this project and set all the MATs for the Classic Canine maps with new shaders. Todo: fur conformers, new breeds

Lyrra the OverWorked

Hi I might not even be able to do that because I bought the dogs I think, before DAZ set up the on-line order history thing on their site. I have been going crazy there trying to track stuff i bought before all that was set up. They have to literally go back to hard copy accounts data base to find them to prove i bought them so i can reload something purchased way back then. Well, we'll figure it when the time comes dear. Mean time, good luck on the new stuff for Poser 11. Look forward to seeing what comes of all that.

Correction...I have them in the digital database so all is cool. Also, I picked up the LowRes dog set there and it is greatly lacking good textures. Is that something that can be re rigged or rep]mapped to at least work with the MilDog textures? Those dog sets are ok for filler but the textures are really poopie. And also love the demon dogs sets but would love new morphs and textures (retextured with MilDog set perhaps?) for them as well as a Cerberus dog for either of the sets.

just checking in to see if there has been any progress. guess not. :(

There was some work done on woody :D look under toons on hivewire

bill

People that know everything by definition can not learn anything

Sorry. Still busy with poser 11 stuff. I did say I would have a delay on this project while I worked on other sets that I had already committed to.

Probably another week for the batch of Pauline skins and then a week or two to finish up and do promos for Paul's Morphs Plus, bodysuit and Fit Room kit. Then I should be able to get back to this set .. so .. in theory .. Januaryish.

Maybe. Longer if I get annoyed.

Just to note - I've had some people harassing me here, via PM, and on other forums so if that behavior continues I might very well take all my toys and find someplace nice and quiet to work without the trolls. I'm going to give the admins here a chance to do their jobs, but since they haven't stomped these people thus far I don't have high hopes.

LM

Nice work Lyrra!

I have to say that harassment has no place whatsoever in the community. I really hope this issue will be taken a bit more seriously in the future because it scares off a lot of the people that actually have something to contribute.

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Oh please don't run away Lyrra! I love what you are doing for the dog, poor thing needs all the help it can get

Oh, please ignore the peanut gallery, Lyrra, your stuff is too nice to rush!

I did most of a a greyhound morph for the Mildog myself, a long time ago, and never finished because I could find no way of getting the ears and paws right without remodelling them completely. Hopefully your greater experience and skill will overcome, when you do get back to this project. Let me know if you need any sight-hound reference pictures for details, I'll point a camera at mine (unless you want running, he always moves too fast for me to catch him in the frame when he's running!)

Progress!

My Paul projects are temporarily stalled while i wait for Smith Micro to sort out a little technical issue. In the meantime I have finished remapping the mildog. This was not an easy task. Some parts of the geometry really did not want to get unwrapped, like the inside of the mouth and between the toes.

A snapshot of the original uvmaps (in UVL) you can clearly see stacked and intersecting mesh as well areas of stretch and compression (blue and red respectively). For the time of creation this wasn't bad (12 or so years ago).

I have completely remapped the entire mesh. Some pieces will look pretty much the same, but I chose to cut in different places. The odd snip at the back of the ears for example removes the distortion areas on the under chin and back of neck areas. I also pulled the eyes to a new map and made them much larger to get more detail. I also completely unwrapped each claw and tooth. I did snip off the belly, which adds a seam, but it much improves the mapping of the sides and groin area and removes that difficult arch on the stomach area which makes shaggier fur and markings so difficult on the mildog.

Next step: All New Maps and then All New Morphs.

Release date: Don't even ask. Later. Much Later.

Do NOT start textures on this map, there is a chance it will be changed.

LM

Hai Gan If by any chance you have a brindle some nice all around shots of the coat would be nice .. thats one of the few coat types where I need a full set of the same dog to get the markings lined up. I think the new ear rig will make all the sighthounds much easier to make now, although I have not tried yet. Are the paws significantly different? as I recall they are mostly smoother and elongated. My afghan hound (after you wetted down all the shag) had very delicate feet for such a tall dog. I havent had a chance to examine any greyhounds or the like in person.

As I recall a long long time ago Lynne? or maybe Capsces? did a decent greyhound on the poser4dog (of all poor creatures)

I read a bit by Gerald Durrell about his attempts to film a ferret for a tv nature show. The thing moved so fast it literally crossed the set stage between camera frames ( back in the mm 80s or so) I don't know how fast greyhounds are compared to ferrets but I can imagine trying to get a shot of one at speed must be tricky :)

LM

willshetterly posted at 10:20PM Tue, 19 January 2016 - #4232543

A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

I don't know if Daz has a Dog 2 in the works but I'm pretty sure Hivewire has one in the pipeline, as well as a deer, Asian elephant and large cat (and so far they look pretty good).

Laurie

Lyrra I am still up for this and willing to help test. I know it doesn't help that atmosphere around here is not too conductive to positive Poser progress.

thanks parkdale... but it will be a long while before I need testers. I'll put out a call then, so you should keep an eye out for that :)

LM

Hi, sorry for the delay, I forgot to check for responses. I don't have a brindle, the only brindle I know right now has a very attractive but very unusual head marking- one side brindle the other side white. The paws are longer, more slender and very much more bony than, say, a Labrador, I'll get photos standing on a hard surface (after I clip his claws, he objects to having his running-spikes reduced but they do need doing!). The ones here are clipped from non-reference-type photos I've taken, but they're mostly relaxed/bent not weight-bearing.

I for one would love to see a much improved version of the Millennium dog, especially in the way the feet look and behave, which currently reminds me more of horse hooves than paws.

and there are textures! Still need to do - wild dogs, foxes, hyeanae, dalmations, more brindles, and merles

oops

Looks pretty impressive. How do you go about creating those maps?

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W10 Pro, HP Envy X360 Laptop, Intel Core i7-10510U, NVIDIA GeForce MX250, Intel UHD, 16 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM, 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD

Mudbox 2022, Adobe PS CC, Poser Pro 11.3, Blender 2.9, Wings3D 2.2.5

My Freestuff and Gallery at ShareCG

did you know in photoshop newest versions you can paint on 3d models? Slowly. Buggily. With ugly stretches. but you CAN

So I have a large complictaed layered psd with all the markings as separate layers so I can mix things togetehr. I've already found a few things i need to add to my mixer and found a couple small issues. (the dobermans chest triangles aren't symmetrical for example)

The wolves use stock photos for the agouti pattern as well as a lot of brush work. pretty much most of the rest is all filterforge, brushwork and pure photoshop. I'm not entirely happy with it as it stands, and I may add a disp map for the wolves later to fluff up the heavy fur a bit

I have options for pink skin, black skin, pink pads, pink nose, freckled nose. The fur can be any colour and all the shadings and markings go over top the colour and under the texturing layer.

Now I get to look at breed morphs and take notes on what texture I need to mix up and save out as well as additional layers needed.

LM

Ok. I use PS 7 (CS). That's before 3d painting capabilities in photoshop. I use Carrara pro and Modo for 3d painting. Both are a little laggy on my old machine but I plan on getting 3dCoat for painting once I upgrade my hardware. I really like 3d painting though, recently won copies of Manga studio EX and filter forge pro so I'm looking forward to adding those also. Again, hardware is holding me back. I'll get there. Thanks for the explainations Lyrra. Your progress looks really good... looking forward to the Hyena!

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W10 Pro, HP Envy X360 Laptop, Intel Core i7-10510U, NVIDIA GeForce MX250, Intel UHD, 16 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM, 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD

Mudbox 2022, Adobe PS CC, Poser Pro 11.3, Blender 2.9, Wings3D 2.2.5

My Freestuff and Gallery at ShareCG

I did most of the work with regular pshop. the painting on 3d part is .. well. rough starts to cover it. I mostly used it to fix seams on the markings and suchlike. Most of the work though was done flat. You can do the 3d seam checking in blacksmith, which is cheaper and has a trial you can check with your hardware so that might be an option for you.

Filter forge is great for all those odd little bits. I used 'rough leather' for the paw pads. 'woodland animal' fur I think? for the base of the fur texture, I made my own brindle striping, and I used some bone filter for the teeth and claw bases. There are a lot of great eye and iris filters.. I know I used the eyewhite from one of Rawarts filters. The skin which is really only visible around the mouth where the fur is patchy, and the inner ears is from a nice human skin filter, colour tweaked in pshop. I'm going to be trying me hand at a merle fur patching pattern, and other patches as well. Dalmation spots I have a photoshop brush for already Lyrra

Thanks for the info, you have me excited to use filterforge now. Great thing about 3d painting is not having to worry as much about seams. Ditto with baking textures. Still, in all, a good uv map is something to strive for, an art. Your mapping is very pleasing to look at... Beyond its intended function... as the thing itself. If that makes any sense. :) As far as upgrading my hardware, I should have enough saved by summer. I want to get a decent hp workstation. I've got enough projects achievable with my set up now to keep me busy. I am itching for some of the new toys though.

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W10 Pro, HP Envy X360 Laptop, Intel Core i7-10510U, NVIDIA GeForce MX250, Intel UHD, 16 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM, 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD

Mudbox 2022, Adobe PS CC, Poser Pro 11.3, Blender 2.9, Wings3D 2.2.5

My Freestuff and Gallery at ShareCG

willshetterly posted at 11:28AM Wed, 17 February 2016 - #4232543

A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

....AND BE FOR D/S ONLY! That would drive me out of my freaking mind!

LaurieA posted at 11:40AM Wed, 17 February 2016 - #4250304

willshetterly posted at 10:20PM Tue, 19 January 2016 - #4232543

A free version and a pay version seems like a fine plan. I have wondered if DAZ has a Dog 2 in the works. I think that's an argument against doing a brand new dog, unless you thought it would be fun for its own sake, of course. Knowing DAZ, any new dog would cost a lot more than what you're estimating for your pay version.

I don't know if Daz has a Dog 2 in the works but I'm pretty sure Hivewire has one in the pipeline, as well as a deer, Asian elephant and large cat (and so far they look pretty good).

Laurie

As much as i like Hivewire goals and ambitions and the few items i have purchased there, there are too few content creators there yet to work on projects at a decent clip. Takes forever from inception of the mesh to final completion. to get something out and so far they have left users panting hungrily in the sidelines. DAZ has a slew of content creator there and seem to get work done quicker but alas, from now on no matter what they create will systematically exclude Poser and poser users.

No proper photos yet- I'm limited to natural daylight, and the weather and short daylight hours have not been kind. I've done a quick comparison front and back paws from side and front though:

It would be cool including a foot compress down morph to show weight of the dog pressing on the foot as it appears in the real photo

I'm trying to finish up my other projects right now so this is back to simmering again. I have made a few tentative runs at morphing and I think that my biggest hurdle is de-dobie-ing the mesh before I can turn it into other breeds. So I think I may start with a lab type morph first, which will serve as a base to start all my other morphs from.

Important lesson: For future models be sure to make a medium type species as the base, not an extreme

Haigan - those are some interesting side by sides. You can very clearly see the difference in the shaping of the toes. I'll have to doublecheck to see how much is breed specific, but I'm thinking the dog might get some reshaping on the feet. I've never much liked them anyways, but haven't been sure why.

Oh BTW. New rules on freebies state no posting of outside links. so I may have to move this entire thread, lock stock and barrels, over to Hivewire where they at least aren't hassling me over where I publish freebies. I'll let you guys know if I do decide to migrate.

LM

goes to show how more equals less. the more market share the more traffic the more retentive and absurdly rule driven sites get. wonderful. i hope they don't become like daz.

I only have the one myself but I know some of the other dog walkers around here to talk to, some of them might let me point a camera at their canine companions. It's just a bit random who I meet in any given week of walkies (and whether it's tipping down with rain). From my recollections of teaching labs to 'shake', they have proportionally wider paws with more rounded toes (which makes the claws seem less prominent), and the two center toes don't have the claws so close together, much more like a toon-ish or generic dog paw than the whippet/greyhound paw. My dog's paw's width is about half the height of my palm; labradors of the same height as my dog or a little shorter have paws that fill my palm, so about twice the width of the whippet.

A species like a dog is always going to be a problem for morphs because humans have developed them into so very many shapes- how similar is a dachshund to a mastiff? It may not be possible to come up with one model that does everything. In terms of a 'generic' dog, dogs themselves revert to a very similar type where you get breeding feral populations, regardless of where that population is and what stock it derives from: the 'pariah' type (which, to confuse things, also seems to have been taken as an official breed as well). You can Google it quite easily, but to me it looks something like a mashup between a labrador, pointer, malinois and husky, tending towards a lighter frame in hot climates and a stockier frame in cold ones.

Hope your other projects are going well, Lyrra!

HaiGan posted at 2:01PM Thu, 18 February 2016 - #4255714

I only have the one myself but I know some of the other dog walkers around here to talk to, some of them might let me point a camera at their canine companions. It's just a bit random who I meet in any given week of walkies (and whether it's tipping down with rain). From my recollections of teaching labs to 'shake', they have proportionally wider paws with more rounded toes (which makes the claws seem less prominent), and the two center toes don't have the claws so close together, much more like a toon-ish or generic dog paw than the whippet/greyhound paw. My dog's paw's width is about half the height of my palm; labradors of the same height as my dog or a little shorter have paws that fill my palm, so about twice the width of the whippet.

A species like a dog is always going to be a problem for morphs because humans have developed them into so very many shapes- how similar is a dachshund to a mastiff? It may not be possible to come up with one model that does everything. In terms of a 'generic' dog, dogs themselves revert to a very similar type where you get breeding feral populations, regardless of where that population is and what stock it derives from: the 'pariah' type (which, to confuse things, also seems to have been taken as an official breed as well). You can Google it quite easily, but to me it looks something like a mashup between a labrador, pointer, malinois and husky, tending towards a lighter frame in hot climates and a stockier frame in cold ones.

Hope your other projects are going well, Lyrra!

Could also think on these ideas. Swimming/retriever dogs like the Lab or Newfoundlander will by nature of their breeding purposes have wider feet for better movement in water and stability on ground to fetch masters kills. Stable on feet are good for seeing eye dogs. Running dogs will have different foot/paw architecture to allow better speed/traction/etc. like the Whippit and greyhound Bigger dogs will have bigger paws and smaller dogs smaller paws, etc. German Shepherds like wolves and huskies will also have bigger feet i think because of their nature in the environments bred/used as working dogs. Hairy dogs will have hairier paws which will assuredly hide the claws and appear wider/bigger on the model especially if hair is not included. I am not a dog expert but I love dogs and have seen these differences to varying degrees in dogs I have observed.

I'm just registering an ongoing interest in this project. You have an eye for doggy body shape and language, Lyrra - that's great, and so important.

Things as seemingly small as the way dogs talk with their ears (!) and the natural articulation of their 'toe' joints can make all the difference to what I like to call 'believability'.

Best wishes for your projects - hoping you come back to this one soon!

Izi

"If I were a shadow, I know I wouldn't like to be half of what I should be."
Mr Otsuka, the old black tomcat in Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami)

I see a commercial on tv that has a woman walki into her home made up of paper. her husband sits on a couch also made of paper. but the coolest character is the little paper dog. a small long hair which goes from paper construct to a living dog. looking at the transition it brings to mind where i have seen similar technique used. morphing poser hair. strips are fastened to the cap in varying lengths and morphs added for movement etc and with the texture maps and transparency maps made to give the little dog long shaggy hair. i wonder why noone has thought of this in the community?

Quoting a great man: "Hmmm.... think it's dead Jim." :{

Not dead yet! Just been busy.. also it is super hard to find a thread in this forum once you lose it. The search function is abysmal

I have made a decision - sorry guys but the mildog project will not be getting any longhaired breeds. I do have a method of making fibremesh hair now, But I'm going to reserve the months of work that will need for a new, higher resolution dog figure which I shall make in the future. I've done as much as I can with this figure but I can only stretch so many polys so far.

So that means right now I am making my final round of morphs and dog breeds and should hopefully have the Improved Mildog commercial set done sometime in the next few weeks (but don't hold your breath)

Set A - Free - Mildog LE with improved bends and improved basic shader for the liver doberman. Does take the existing classic canines maps, to which you may wish to add the bumpmap I include and run it through EZskin.

Set B - Commercial - will need RTE to decode. Remapped Mildog LE with a stack of new morphs and new breeds and as of right now 41 coats. Also includes a second RTE encoded file which has the Mildog Classic Canines morphs reworked to the new RM mildog shape. Does NOT take the existing calssic canines maps.

So you will have to install and figure out RTE (yes I will include a tutorial) but then you will have several hundred morphs and breeds to play with.

Long and medium haired breeds are just going to have to wait, sorry. But I do hope to get to that project this year.

In the meantime .. todays breeds, and not yet final

Shaders are not yet final either

Lyrra

I love the work you have been doing with this Lyrra! What effort and what wonderful results!!

Boni

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"Be Hero to Yourself" -- Peter Tork

I want to help crowd source or prerelease/presubscription license (whatever)something like that

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy

 Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor

So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?

Jim, not sure what you are referring to. If something like is a stand alone mesh, wonderful, but this is based on the Mil Dog by DAZ, you would have to go through them. If it is based on someone else's work, you need to contact them. Please ask questions in our copyright forum for more information.

Boni

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"Be Hero to Yourself" -- Peter Tork

I missed my point It doesn't surprise me. I already own the DAZ product Iv'e already rte'd enough content to not be scared by such a simple legalisms I'm expressing my support.count me in if you want sell me some improved Poser content

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy

 Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor

So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?

Thank you JimTS, All good. We just need to cross our t's and dot our i's around here for the legal department.

Cheers!

Boni

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"Be Hero to Yourself" -- Peter Tork

I want !

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy

 Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor

So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?

I am slowly working my way through my list of breeds to make spun versions of them. Once I'm happy with the conformation of each one, then I will go and freeze each breed as a morph and code in the scaling. Then test each one for motion to make any specialty JCMs needed. Then I get to go through the huge stack of skins I made for Firefly and reset all of them to work in Superfly. Then a last round of 'how does it bend' before packing. Finally it goes off to my personal testers. As you can guess this is not a quick process and I'm not going to rush it.

Creators wishing to make addons for the Mildog ImpRM should email me for an RTE coded base obj to model on. It is a different shape than the base mildog. I have fleshed it out to make it more of a generic dog shape than the default doberman shape, as well as opening the jaw. Creators wishing to make texture maps should request the obj as well as a base psd template to start on. Creators wishing to make poses or rig/rerig conformers are going to have to wait until I am finished tweaking the rigging, sorry. Mildog Improved Remapped does take regular mildog poses very well, which was sort of the point, but I imagine people will want specialty poses for the extreme breed shapes such as whippets/greyhounds, and basset hounds.

Thank you for you expression of support .. right now all I need is for you to stand there and wave your flags and pom poms as encouragement :)

Todays big project is resetting the LegsLength scaling so the negative setting can go short enough for Corgis, Dachshunds and Basset Hounds. This is a challenge and I expect there will be a fair amount of cussing. I will also have to make a custom Basenji tail, as the combination of shortness and curl breaks the mesh a great deal so a custom smooth is needed.

LM

well that was exactly as annoying a job as I expected. lol

LM

Very astonishing results

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Ulli

"Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience!"

Huzah to Lyrra Bravo I can't spell a baying basset voice text is such a limited form of expression

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy

 Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor

So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?

more wip renders. Including a pose test with the dachshund that made me laugh

LM

Great Corgi! (see my avatar!), The nose could be a little shorter, and the legs just a little longer, but it is rather convinving

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

well the nice thing is that I'm leaving all my construction morphs in place after I freeze the breeds. So you will be able to adjust each breed/dog separately to taste. I have been using the AKC breed standard photos to base my breeds off of, but you know how much individual variation there is. I'm just trying to get the shape as close as I can. I figure most people using this set will either be fine with the stock shapes, or spend ages adjusting it to look like a specific dog. lol

Still have a few fixits to do and some morph adjustments - I'm not happy with the paunch that the very short legged dogs seem to develop and the basenji and pug tails are crinkling like crazy. They may need a separate tail setting for short+curled

I need to make a puppy morph, and the Hyena morph and skin. LD are you still watching? I'm about ready to send a cr2 to you for mimic morphs if you are still interested.

Mostly I'm coming into the cleanup and finalizing stage of things which means a couple more weeks work but the major construction is pretty much done.

Haigan - Greyhounds, Whippets and Saluki all have what is called 'hare foot' it is longer and more elegant, and the pawpads are more oval, so the footprint is longer. Many toy breeds have 'cat foot' which is the opposite, smaller and more compact so the foot print is very round like a cats. Most canines have 'indeterminate' paws, and a couple have webbed toes. I have made hare foot and cat foot morphs, which really did make the sighthounds look proper. With no articulated toes you can't spread them to see webbing, so I skipped that one

LM

great stuff there Getting stuff right while allowing for individualization is the art part

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy

 Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor

So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?

back to the grindstone

Woof bark bark ahhruuuhh

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket
Charles Péguy

 Heat and animosity, contest and conflict, may sharpen the wits, although they rarely do;they never strengthen the understanding, clear the perspicacity, guide the judgment, or improve the heart
Walter Savage Landor

So is that TTFN or TANSTAAFL?

slowly getting there...

some of todays progress.

missed one...

for all those GoT fans .. this is not the modern hybrid called 'dire wolf' that they used on the show. This is closer to the prehistoric giant wolf breed found in ancient Europe, the kind that hunted those seven foot tall elks.

LM

left to do: reset all the mats for superfly. Pack. Make promos.

weekend off for me! back to the grind on monday

You can now apply via private message to be considered as a tester. you MUST have poser 10 or 11 and the MildogLE or Mildog Starter set

LM

Really like that last one, Lyrra.

Pugs have lots of wrinkles on their faces, especially on their forehead.

True enough, but send him through the Hair room and you have a nice Pomeranian, or a shiatsu, or whatever though little mops are called.

Just wanted to pop in and say: I LOVE THIS PROJECT :D

FREEBIES! | My Gallery | My Store | My FB | Tumblr |
You just can't put the words "Poserites" and "happy" in the same sentence - didn't you know that? LaurieA
  Using Poser since 2002. Currently at Version 11.1 - Win 10.

The pug does have wrinkles, but that wip shader/lighting has really made them hard to see. I could only do so much with this mesh though, its not exactly hi res.

done with all the new mats. Tomorrow I get to make thumbnail pngs and send out to my beta testers (both of them) Seems like a scarcity of volunteers. Oh well!

A teaser render of this project in use finally :)

LM

Files have been encoded, packed and sent out to my two volunteer testers. They may yet regret this :) Tomorrow I start making promo images. Feel free to make image requests in this thread.

LM

Testing is happening and I must say that I am impressed with the time and obvious desire that was put into this product. When Lyrra releases this the poor old MilDog will never be the same. The puppy morph is adorable. Testing renders coming soon.

sooooooon

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/mildog-improved-remapped/115572/

Freebie sets should be along in the next few days

Good stuff Lyrra. I found it lovely to work with and I hope it does well for you.

nice job dear. on my wish list. need to invest a big chunk of change on physical therapy for a while so no poser stuff until better. but look forward to petting/getting this pak.