Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=259085

Now, this is something that I did in Poser 5 and imported into Bryce for the final composition of models and rendering. This actually what I was talking about when I said we swere all SF fans: there are bits and pieces from all over SF in this one. Although you might more precisely call it fantasy. :-) Any opinions?

Nice setup. The characters limbs look a little stiff and straight though, maybe bend his knees and elbows a tiny bit. I like the placement of the moon, I wouldn't be afraid to make it larger. ;o) If the moon is behind him what is lighting him from the front? A torch or bondfire perhaps? Maybe put a fire material on a radial light in front of him... My unasked for critique aside, how do you like Poser 5?

Damn, I thought I posted an answer from home. Where I even copied the text for such an incident. :-( First, the critique was not unasked. :-) The figure is supposed to be as straight as possible. The only thing I could have done is to make him push his chest out more. BTW, the limbs are not straight. I can post a screenshot of the figure in wireframe view. :-) As to the moon, I was trying for an icon look, so this size, I think, fits. IMBW, of course. I did put a black-white bump map on the fire (yep, a firelight), so I get places where it doesn't shine. The Difference Clouds plus some other filter in Photoshop. I had tried putting Clay's fire mat on a light in a different picture and got patterns of light on floor, not smooth transitions, regardless of fuzziness. So I didn't even try on this one. As to Poser 5, I like it. It does have problems. For instance, it still doesn't put the path into MTL file, so you have to click through directories. (Thank you, Darlisa. :-)) Bryce still imports the textures with diffusion, ambience and specularity of 100, BTW. Of the new things in Poser, the Hair room is pretty straightforward and effective. The problem is, you have to create your own transmap to apply in other applications. Also, Poser, for some reason, sometimes loses the group you just created, so you might end with a couple of hair groups of the same name, if you're not careful. You have to create the prop, otherwise you end with a part of the body that has a different name. I tried making an unshaven chin, and didn't do that and ended with a chin integrated into the head. but that's me. :-) Material room is a great improvement from the previous version(s). OTOH, the sword and the shield were created in another program and imported into Poser. Both were OBJ groups. The sword got in as a single object, so, if I wanted to texture it, I would have to use the polygon grouping tool. Which is a great bother. The shield had five materials, but they were named Material 1 etc, so I had to guess which one was which. Finally, the Material Room, though great, is more complicated than Bryce (more complicated than 3DS, IIRC). But that might also be just me. Setup room, I need to check the manual again (which is not exactly helpful in that matter), because I tried creating a posable braid, made bones and then couldn't find the way to connect the bones to the braid. I haven't tried Cloth (but will do tonight) or Face (don't have photos) rooms. Rendering quality is much greater than before. Of course, the rendering is also slower. But you can speed it up for drafts and checking, like you can do in Bryce. the only real problem is that it's slow and has bugs. Switching between the rooms is not as fast as it should be on my P4 1.7, it takes a lot of time to start, and if you click on one action and then immediately on another, there's a good chance it might freeze. I downloaded the patch and will try it when I get back home. There was a funny problem with scene. I tried doing it in Poser and imported a ground prop. And then the picture went dark. I tried increasing the lights, lightening the textures... No go. After I gave up and imported the figure with sword and shield in Bryce, I accidentaly discovered that the ground imported tilted so it stood between the lights and the figure. Why, I have no idea. Good thing is, the figure didn't need smoothing when imported in Bryce. All in all, I like it and will try to master it as much as possible.

I really like the effect of the moon behind the guy's head. It looks to me like he is daring someone to stab him in the chest. Is he supposed to be looming commandingly over his conquests or submitting himself to the gods? In any case, they way the body has been arranged is very natural-looking. I have used Poser a bunch and I know how hard that is. I agree with AgentSmith's comment about the fire. perhaps if you put a tiny hint of a bonfire at his feet it would clear up the business about where the light on his face is from. I'm thinking just the very tips of the flames just a foot or so in front of his toes so it looks like he is standing over a firepit. Those comments aside, I do like the feel of the whole thing. Nicely done. Thanks also for the info about Poser 5. Lin

Thank you. He is ... as I said, a mixture of various bits and pieces from fantasy. A bit of the Mongolian warriors in Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, a bit of the Dragon Reborn from the Jordan's soap fantasy, a bit of various "from here to another world" fantasies and there's a bit of Ursula Leguin's The Farthest Shore in the background. The title should've been "Waiting for the Challenge", as he is the champion, waiting for somebody to come and fight him, offering his chest for the first cut. So, you guessed right. But how I transformed that into "The Challenger" when I uploaded the pic, I don't know. Momentary insanity, I suppose. :-) although the situation can be turned, a self-confident challenger who's waiting for the champion to try and stab him. The problem with the change is, I don't like when people post numerous revisions of the same picture, so I wouldn't like to do that. Although I agree that tips of flames would be a great addition. I played with Setup and Face rooms tonight. Setup works on the same principle as the Material and Hair rooms. Create the bones. Pick your polygons and assign them to a bone. You have to be very careful picking, otherwise you'll have a broken model later. Joints are still a mistery. :-) Beside the advertised photo modelling, Face room can be used to modify the existing faces to create a type. For instance, in Face Sculpting, you can create a broken-nosed Oriental. Which is great for getting unusual characters. Quite a good thing and unlike the head parameters, where you can fine-tune the expression, but you don't have wide cheekbones or Ethnicity.

Oohhh!! Now I want Poser 5! Not that Poser 4 isn't lots of fun. Did you find it hard to move from 4 to 5? Did you go from 4 to 5? Lin

No, I didn't. I played once or twice with Poser 4, with a help from a friend who has it (the first picture I ever created was with a Poser 4 character. Ew.), and obtained Poser 3 from a magazine CD. But it was a couple of months ago, so there was no preiod of adjustment. From what I saw, there is no much difference, because they just expanded the interface. The way of moving through it is still the same, the parameter dials are the same, and so on. BTW, they still don't have a list of recently opened files.