Attached Link: http://www.datamike.com/susu.htm

I would like to start a discussion about the two new utilities that move Poser animations into Bryce. One is "Susanna," which I just purchased, but haven't yet tried. The other is Konan's "Natural Pose," for which I have the demo, but haven't tried yet either. I haven't installed the Natural Pose demo yet, because I'm not sure Natural Pose will work for me yet due to the fact that I have only 128 MB of RAM--Konan says Natural Pose is a memory hog and recommends 512 MB. Susana isn't a memory hog, and is half the price of Natural Pose, so I bought it first. Anyway, I'd eventually like to use both; so, any feedback from those of you who are using either--or especially BOTH would be welcome. If you have tried both, do you have any preferences. Has anyone with just 128 MB RAM been able to use Natural Pose? (Active link above is for Susanna. Konan's is: http://www.ev.ca/konan/NatPose/index.htm)

Looked into susanna. Seemed OK but vaguly remember an earlier thred which had couple of people saying it was a longer more involved process and had hassle with textures. That being said they have said that an upgrade for P4 to B5 is free (if it occurs in the six months following your purchase). I have used Konans on a celeron laptop with 128MB. It is OK. Poser 3 was slower at exporting the files. I get the impression that Poser and Bryce may prove more problematical. Just about to import the Animation into Bryce. Oh the demo does not support the transfer of textures. Other than that Konan has a little cracker here. Let me know how you get on with susanna.

Attached Link: http://innuendo.ev.ca/NatPose

Hey, Konan here. WARNING! BIASED OPINION! I CREATED NATURAL POSE! :) I have not used Suzanna yet, but from what I can tell, it's memory requirements are greater than that of Natural Pose. For each frame of animation, a copy of the mesh is required, so if you have a 30 frame animation, there is 30 meshes in memory. Besides, RAM is cheap. Last time I checked, 256 MB of RAM was about $100 canadian dollars ~$&5 US. The reason why Natural Pose has a lower memory requirement is that it features polygon reduction, so you can eliminate at least 50% of the polygons without a visible difference (typically). You can create a super low polygon version of the animation to preview and setup the scene as well. The texture option is the key selling feature, as Natural Pose (registered version) creates a single texture map, single transparency map, etc. for your entire figure. So texturing your character takes about 30 seconds to a minute (with all of the maps and colors intact). Natural Pose also exports 3DS files for import to Bryce, which import much faster than OBJ files (and more reliabily for large animations). If you do not have too much RAM, then you can always "split up" the rendering, where you only import one 3DS file ate a time (30 frames of animation per 3DS file), render the animations and recombine them in post-production. Please email me with any concerns that you may have with Natural Pose. If you spot a bug, let me know and I will fix it immediately. I am committed to making Natural Pose bug free as soon as possible. Konan

If anyone trys out both I would like to know, I can't afford to pay either $99 or $49.95 if it doesn't work no matter the price..its not worth it. Thanks Nick Future Bryce 5 upgrader:)

nicholas, try the demo of nature poser. I am still waiting for a demo of susanna.

Konan: you are badly mistaken if you think Susanna needs more memory than your program! I rendered a 45 Skeleton animation with a laptop having only 96MB. Futhermore: - Poser characters do not need polygon reduction at all. Why should they? And all posers are brought in as Wavefront OBJs and you can use other formats just as well. - Materials are very easy to use and work beautifully. You can use multiple (even animated) materials on any poser, prob, or poser part (hand, shirt, whatever). Oh btw: using a material on a Poser does not take 30 seconds to a minute like in your product. Susanna applies material in less than a second. - You don't have to split animations to cater memory limits. Making a 10 minute movie takes just as much RAM as a six seconds animation. Oh, as far as bugs are concerned: no one has reported any!

Attached Link: http://innuendo.ev.ca/NatPose

Alright Joke, let's make some peace here. No insult was intended. I was just guessing on by what was I read about on the Suzanna web page. Since there is not a demo available, I had to guess based on what I read. I am guessing that you are the guy who made Susanna based on your reaction (if not, my appologies). If you are, first of all, I'd like to welcome you as a competitor. Let out competition make the Poser2Bryce experience as best as it can be. Not all figures are created equal, and that is why polygon reduction is featured in Natural Pose. Some characters use alot more polygons than the standard P4 characters, and Bryce will simply use more memory for these characters. The Suzanna web sits says Key features: - Import multiple animations with ease. No special memory requirements. If your system can handle 20, 30, 50 or more Poser meshes then you can animate it with Susanna! See attached Skeleton March animation with 45 figures. Well, if you load 50 copies of Vicky or Michael into memory, you will soon see how much memory is used. Natural Pose's textures DO only take 30 seconds to a minute to set up for the registered product, as it only takes that long to apply a single texture map, a single transparency map, etc. The demo does not support this feature and perhaps this is what confused you. It is very ironic that we both developed a Poser2Bryce solution around the same time. I'm sure that both of our products have their respective qualities and features. I developed Natural Pose not just to be a Poser2Bryce program, but in principle, it can be used in ANY program that can handle 3DS files, as single texture map, a single transparency map, etc (Vue for example). Anyway, happy competing! Konan

BTW, I did post the warning that my opinion was biased WARNING! BIASED OPINION! I CREATED NATURAL POSE! :) Konan

Bravo Konan for the tone of discussion you are now setting. As for me, I plan to use both products. (Still saving funds to get yours; but it will happen sooner now that I know I don't need 512 of RAM to use Natural Pose.) I look forward to both of you succeeding. Then perhaps you will both go on to create more goodies for all of us out here. Best wishes and good luck to you both! I look forward to an ongoing discussion, by both creators of these two programs, as well as users--all in a friendly tone, hopefully.

I want to say one thing, whatever of two aplications we are going to use, or both, here the thing is: Why Curious labs or Corel, or before Metacreations... didnt do anything about put together this two worderfull programs( Poser and Bryce). I think CL or Corel must give to the creators of natural pose and Susanna a big big thanks.

hi guys Im not a big animation person, but I do want to say that (as konan stated) not all poser critters are equal in poly count. For instance, i have made at present 16 new characters for poser that will be released next month. Polygon counts on most of them could be significantly reduced, but I have left several at a higher than necessary count to allow the "morph gods" the ability to create smooth morphs that dont look like pyramids stacked on the things. For instance, the octopus I have is ~85000 poly...way more than necessary...fine for stills, but lordy Id hate to see that thing in an animation if not polyreduced...lol Ive been reading about both programs...and I get lots of emails about poser to bryce animation capabilities. Thanx to both of you for creating these...as it now offers at least a method of doing it. And I point them to both sites now for them to decide. beer mug up to both of you salute BT

Attached Link: http://www.datamike.com/susu.htm

85000 poly? Are you sure there are just eight tentacles? ;) I read from CG magazine that an upcoming movie "Dungeons and Dragons" the dragons have 65000 poly meshes. If you can send me the octopus and I'll make an animation of it. Anyway in my humble opinion something like polygon reduction should not be imposed on you by the software. I've made a new feature to Susanna, Poser animations to Bryce. Susanna has now the ability to create "movies within movies". Bryce can create 2d images in your scene but Susanna can turn these in to real animations. Just like in TV ads where producers have uses Adobe after effects etc.. But these created with Susanna are *in your scene* not some after effect pasted on an AVI. Checkout the new Mpeg on www.datamike.com/susu.htm

you sure that those meshes are only 65000? The "generic" ones for shrek were >800000..maybe thats supposed to be 650000? actually, you are right..the octo is a squid too (they have 10 arms not just 8) Im not sure that the konan's proggy makes you use poly reduction (not sure)... but I do think it should be an option (but bryce should offer the ability to polyreduce before importing) thats a neat little addition...I can guess what its doing to achieve that. Im sure that lotsa folks will like it. If your interested in seeing all the new critters Ive got up (except the latest 2..there are 17 now..15 shown) you can look at: http://www.brycetech.com/stufftodelete/models/models1.html and if you and konan want an interesting new model that you dont have, I might be willing to give you a one of the ones I'm doing so that you can try something new...and as a small "thank you" for doing this for brycers and poser-ers (?) A dragonfly (attached) and roach (under construction) are not pictured yet in the page above...poly info and file sizes are also included in the descriptions to help you decide should you really want one... the most solid models are the insects/spiders..the mantis might be fun..or perhaps the hairy spider? :P best BT

Joke: How and when will the new "animation within animation" feature of Susanna be made available to users who have purchased the version without this feature?

The update will be sent to all buyers of Susanna in a few hours. ... and there's even a cooler addition coming up! But that will take at least a week of coding & debugging.

Joke: What you really need is an on-line tutorial...would show people how the program works, prior to purchasing it...of course a demo would be nice..but a tutorial would be great as well.

Glad to see you got a tutorial up..going to try susanna I think first...both seem to have there advantages... Question for you Joke...can a character be sitting and then stand-up and walk...I think it could easily be done simply with keyframes...but can keyframe be used or must a path be used for the animation? Thanks

Sure. You create the animation in Poser, convert it to OBJ and then Susanna brings it to Bryce. You can also combine and re-use animation. With this I mean a crowd scene can use many same animation pieces. Just like done in many silver screen movies. You could also create animations from pieces: 1) man sits at a table 2) man stands up 3) man walks away You could do it in one animation or a sequence joined together.

Thank you for your quick reply! Buying Susanna this evening.

First let me say, Joke, you are doing yourself a great diservice by not having a demo. I am REALLY interested in your software, but am not commiting money to something I have basically no idea how, or how well, it works. NaturalPose does have a demo, which I have tried out and I'm sorry to say I could not be MORE disappointed. The process, while fairly uncomplicated, is incredibly LONG and tedious. I have a PIII-800 with 512MB ram, and it took forever to do a simple animation. It was literally so slow that I would have preferred using alpha channels in Poser and then comping it in After Effects. I could even use shadows with an AE plugin. Sure the render might take a while, but at least I could set it up and let the computer do the work. THE POLYGON REDUCTION STEP ALONE IS UNBEARABLY SLOW IN NP... ON ANY SETTING! With NP you have to wait at every step ... I was really depressed when I looked at the clock and realized how much time I was wasting waiting for some of these steps to complete. Then when you get into Bryce there is even more preperation and waiting. This could be no fault of NP's, maybe it's just the way things have to be done to work in Bryce, but this was where I threw up my hands and called it quits. I can comp much easier faster for most situations. My only hope is that Sussana will be faster and easier. PLEASE put up a demo. The tutorial is much too general to get a good idea of exactly how Sussana works. -Tim

Tim, I have to apologize for the previous release. I am automating everything right now and it will be available shortly. I realized how complicated it was when i was revising the help files. Please accept my apologies and check out the new demo when it is available (a few days) The new demo wil contain everything except texture mapping, so you can get a good idea of how it works. Konan

Konan: Are the revised help files up now? (I saved the first version.) Or are the "revised help files" to be posted when the new version is posted in a few days?

Hey Seed, The automated update will be available over the next few days. The update will make the alot of the help pages obsolete. They will be updated as well. Konan

Konan, Thanks. Look forward to not only trying the new demo, but buying the product as well. Keep plugin" away!

Thanks Seed, Again, I have to apologize for making the first release so hard to import into Bryce. I spent so much time on the "Single Skin" feature and the polygon reduction, I overlooked the complexity of the import process. The new release will actually automate Poser as well. It will export all of the required files into a temporary directory, and import them into NatPose automatically. Konan

Konan, Any plans for a Natural Pose update that will work with Bryce 5?

As soon as I get Bryce 5 plus two days or so, NatPose will work with Bryce 5. It turns out that the automation is quite easy, once you know what you need to automate :) Does Corel plan on releasing a demo of Bryce 5. I hope so. Konan

A Bryce 5 demo? Who knows!

I didn't get susanna..actually have been busy with another project, but a thought popped into my head..does Natural Poser allow the use of Bryce paths. Basically my question is, can you decide exactly where you want the character to walk, or is it set on the original positioning?

Hey Nick, Once you bing in a character into Bryce via NatPose, you can link it to a control object, like a sphere for example (make it hidden as well). Then, you can easily move that sphere any way you like (including Bryce Paths) and the character will follow. NatPose (the new update) will also support looping, so you can set a 30 frame walking sequence to loop 10 times in place, and then determine the path via Bryce. If you parent the character to a small disk, and place that disk below the character's feet, you can use the little up and down arrows in Bryce to keep the character waking on uneven ground. Konan

Konan: It sounds like you are making some major improvements on NatPose (the looping especially sounds great), that's great. And I KNOW you put a LOT of work into it already, and so I hate having to post a negative review. I will hold off judgement until the new release, but even with some of it automated, the actual time it take sto generate all those files is REALLY long. Perhaps this is just "the way it has to be" because of limitation imposed by Poser/Bryce. However, without a Susanna demo, it's impossible to say. I don't know if Joke's approach to importing is the same or similar to yours or not. Is it possible you're adding extra, unneccesary, steps? The whole "gear thing" SEEMS unneccessary to me ... but then again, what do I know. I'm very curious to see how Sussanna handles the Bryce side of the process. But alas, no demo. For people who are not AE proficient or don't even know what comping is, NatPose (as is) might be fine for them. I'm sure you will always have a market, and I wish you much success. I'm anxsiouly awaiting the new release. Good luck! -Tim

Thanks Tim, There is nothing like a negative review to give me a good kick in the ass and improve things. Standby for an updated demo my Monday morning. The Automation is now fully functional, but I have to do some more testing before I release the new demo. Konan

Glad I could provide my "foot" ... although that was not my intent. I look forward to the new version. And, if you ever need a beta tester in the future, I am an excellent choice. If there are problems or badly needed missing features ... I WILL find them. I have bt'd for numbers of companies. Take care, Tim

Tim, As far as compositing goes, it's an approach--the only one previously available for combining animations from Poser and Bryce. For my projects, however, I need reflections as well as shadows. Perhaps shadows can be faked with some AE or other plugins, but reflections off Poser animated objects put into Bryce, and vice versa? My Poser figures will be interacting with Bryce's 3D world in other ways, too--ways that cannot be simulated well or easily with mere compositing. The only solution I know of is what is being offered by Natural Pose and Susanna. As to slow: I'll just have to suffer through it. Short stunning segments done with these two programs can be spliced into composited scenes for a more effective overall output. I need all the tools I can get. These are both quite afforable

Attached Link: http://www.datamike.com/susu.htm

People have asked how long does it to take to make an animation with Susanna. Making an animation with Susanna is pretty straightforward: you use Poser, Susanna and Bryce. There is no need to bring in extra programs to automate something. Once you've made the Poser animation the Susanna part is very simple: you give informations what you are animating, where are the files etc.. And that's it. When Poser part is finished most of the time goes to Bryce rendering the animation. There is no need to cut time or compromise quality to make something just work. Susanna takes very little memory. I've run it on a Cyrix 486 (actually a 386) with just 4 megs of memory running Windows 3.1. If There was a Bryce version for Windows 3.1 Susanna would work on that. Take a look at the Bryce pictures at Susanna site. The scene is not cluttered allthough there are four posers acting.

I forgot to reply why there is no demo available for Susanna. I've always liked the open source concept. I personally hate it when I'm using a program and then I hit a brick wall with a program. That is why Susanna is built with an open source idea in mind. Susanna comes with a program that runs compiled scripts. The source files to the scripts are included and can be modified by the user. A compiler and an interpreter is included. This way even a new feature can be added later by the user. The user won't hit a brick wall! So now that the user gets the script source it is very difficult to implement any demo feature. It just is not feasible. I'd have to criple the program to the point of uselessnes. This "open source" idea is of course aimed at programmer types. The normal user will be happy to use the easy interface and forget the intricate details behind the scenes. But should he/she ever want to change something that option is there. Many also ask why this program costs only about $50. For those I'll be more than happy to sell the program at a higher price ;). And keep in mind this price is an introductory price just like competition's.

THANKS FOR OPEN-SOURCING IT!

Open source is a broad concept and used in many program to a varying degree. Some programs let's you see the entire code and others give user pathways to add features via DLL's etc.. Take a look at Max for example. The DLL system there lets you augment many important things in the program. You can write your own renderer for example. I believe this is a key feature for Max's success. The third party business can augment a lot in Max. Many times I've wished Bryce had some sort of documented add-on hook. A side note on a previous message (#12) about how many polys were used in "Dungeons and Dragons". I dug up the january issue of 3D World and it it says that the dragons used about 80,000 polys or less. It goes on to say that they used four months of round-the-clock render-farming for a 10-15 minutes CGI sequence. I wonder what the pixel height and width was for each picture.

Then you should offer a money-back guarantee. The only thing you do by not offering one or the other (guarantee or demo) is invite distrust and wariness, which turns into lost sales. 95% of the people who are interested in this are not programmers and could care less about creating new features. They would rather leave that up to you in future releases. Therefore, most of your sales-base is not being targeted at all. Demos are key to generating sales with most programs. I know ... I created a multimedia Grand National CD-ROM. Sales were okay at launch, but then nearly quadrupled after a demo was available and continued to rise. Maybe you should consider creasting a non-open version so that you can offer a demo version for the vast amjority of potential users. At the VERY LEAST, Joke, show on your web site, STEP-BY-STEP, how Sussanah works. SO far you have not provided any information into how the program ACTUALLY works and what the user has to do. This alone would be very helpful. -Tim

I like open-source...keep it that way..go for the step by step visual display of how susanna works..I'd rather it be open-source...new features will appear faster that way..thank you joke!

Attached Link: http://www.datamike.com/susu2.htm

The manual for Susanna is available for download at www.datamike.com/susu2.htm. The manual is in Adobe PDF form and size is 1.3Mb.

Joke, First off, at least for me, at the moment, the link to your PDF manual isn't working. (Maybe it's just overloaded--but I thought you might want to know.) Secomd: I have purchased Susanna, and also recieved the upgrade. One thing puzzles me (its a minor point, but odd): The original PDF is 982KB, the update PDF is 2.92 MB; yet there is only about one-half page difference in length! Why such a large difference in file size? Also, when I print out the manual the page numbers don't correspond to the ones viewed on the screen (weird Adobe PDF stuff, I guess.) I have Susanna installed, but haven't used it yet; I need about a full day to fiddle and faddle, and I am working myself to death paying bills--just waiting for a full day off. WIll then also tryout the Natural Pose demo. Still hoping someone out there has tried each one and can compare before I do. Hey, Konan and Joke: Why not give each other a free copy of your respective programs? Then see what good you can find in each other's approach? Imagine what might come out of a collaboration? Competetion is good, but collaboration soars!

Seedpress: The manuals sizes are different because font options and bitmap packing have been altered. PDF has a multitude of options and compatibility is also a factor. The 1.3Mb fiel on the web is probably as good as it get PDF-wise. If you print the manual at A4 size page numbers will match.