In article <3f562575@news.povray.org>, Warp wrote:
>   Since you asked for the easiest and not the cheapest solution, then
> the answer is Poser.

I sure did. :)  I'm not afraid to pay, but are people having any
luck with something cheaper?


-- 
If riding in an airplane is flying, then riding in a boat is swimming.
46 jumps, 12.4 minutes of freefall, 25.9 ff vertical miles.

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Jettero Heller wrote:
> 
> In article <3f562575@news.povray.org>, Warp wrote:
> >   Since you asked for the easiest and not the cheapest solution, then
> > the answer is Poser.
> 
> I sure did. :)  I'm not afraid to pay, but are people having any
> luck with something cheaper?

Not really. Poser has a rather dedicated following in POV-Ray and I have
yet to see another program with the capabilities that Poser offers.

-- 
Ken Tyler

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Wasn't it Jettero Heller who wrote:
>In article <3f562575@news.povray.org>, Warp wrote:
>>   Since you asked for the easiest and not the cheapest solution, then
>> the answer is Poser.
>
>I sure did. :)  I'm not afraid to pay, but are people having any
>luck with something cheaper?

I'd suggest trying to get your hands on a free copy of Poser 3 to start
with. It's been given away on various magazine covers from time to time.
I don't think it's downloadable free from anywhere, and the back issue
of Computer Arts that carried it sold out very quickly. If you find that
you like P3, then consider buying the upgrade to P4 or P5.

The other cheap (free) avenue to investigate is Blobman.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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Mike Williams wrote:

> Wasn't it Jettero Heller who wrote:
> 
>>In article <3f562575@news.povray.org>, Warp wrote:
>>
>>>  Since you asked for the easiest and not the cheapest solution, then
>>>the answer is Poser.
>>
>>I sure did. :)  I'm not afraid to pay, but are people having any
>>luck with something cheaper?
> 
> 
> I'd suggest trying to get your hands on a free copy of Poser 3 to start
> with. It's been given away on various magazine covers from time to time.
> I don't think it's downloadable free from anywhere, and the back issue
> of Computer Arts that carried it sold out very quickly. If you find that
> you like P3, then consider buying the upgrade to P4 or P5.
> 
> The other cheap (free) avenue to investigate is Blobman.

I haven't seen Blobman on the 'net recently.  Which is strange since the 
petibonum tool came out not that long ago.

I've been trying to get blobman to walk for the up-coming animation 
contest.  Some success, but not enough to submit.  Have to get on with 
the rest of it, but if there's time I'll try to get it working (and will 
post it.)

Question - Blobman is pretty slow parsing.  Are Poser meshes any better? 
  And has anyone animated a poser figure?

Tom A.

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news:3f57721d$1@news.povray.org...

> Question - Blobman is pretty slow parsing.  Are Poser meshes any better?

Well they're meshes and they tend to be quite big (> 10 Mb + large maps),
particularly the latest versions of the DAZ models, so they tend to parse
slow...

>   And has anyone animated a poser figure?

Yes, look for Stephen McAvoys' "High Wire" animations in p.b.a (June 6 and
15 2003).
It's not easy, as it's necessary to create the movement first in Poser and
then export every frame as a different mesh (converters like 3Dwin can do
this in batch though). Matching the original movement in Pov-Ray is then
another challenge. In short, it's feasible, but that's all. I still have a
animation of running herd of 400 Poser horses that I've yet to complete...

G.


-- 

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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Wasn't it Tom A. who wrote:
>Question - Blobman is pretty slow parsing.  Are Poser meshes any better? 
>  And has anyone animated a poser figure?

Poser meshes parse quickly, and (like all meshes) they render extremely
quickly. The slowest part is converting the mesh from OBJ format to POV
Mesh format.

I'd never considered doing a Poser animation in POV before, thinking
that I'd have to export each frame individually and convert each OBJ
file to mesh format individually. However, it turns out that when you
export an animated Poser figure you can specify multiple frame output
and it creates a sequence of numbered OBJ files, and ObjUVPov can be
told to convert the whole lot at once. Then you just have to write POV
code to read a different mesh for each frame, like:

#include "strings.inc"

#declare Command = concat(
   "#include \"Fred_", str(frame_number-1 ,0 ,0), ".inc\" ")

#declare Figure = object { Parse_String(Command) }

Here's some *per-frame* statistics for a typical Poser person to POV and
rendering a very basic scene at 1024*768 AA 0.3, with very simple
lighting and texturing, on a 850 MHz Coppermine II.

Exporting Poser model to OBJ      3 secs
OBJ file size                   2.9 Mb
Converting to POV mesh           74 secs
Mesh file size                  3.7 Mb
Parsing                           5 secs
Tracing                           9 secs

So it would be possible to create a 60 frame animation in about an hour
and a half using 396 Mb of obj and mesh file space.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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news:ABHcuHA393V$Ew8p@econym.demon.co.uk...

> Mesh file size                  3.7 Mb

Actually, this is the figure for a naked and bald Poser 3 figure. A Michael
or Victoria figure (which are the usual quality models to use with Poser)
with clothes and hair is more like 15 Mb in mesh2 (and this is for a basic
dress or hair, not elaborate ones). Two of them waltzing for 1 min would use
almost 2 Gb of mesh2 and 2 Gb of obj.

G.


-- 
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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On Thu, 4 Sep 2003 22:47:44 +0200, "Gilles Tran" <git### [at] wanadoofr> wrote:


>news:ABHcuHA393V$Ew8p@econym.demon.co.uk...
>
>> Mesh file size                  3.7 Mb
>
>Actually, this is the figure for a naked and bald Poser 3 figure. A Michael
>or Victoria figure (which are the usual quality models to use with Poser)
>with clothes and hair is more like 15 Mb in mesh2 (and this is for a basic
>dress or hair, not elaborate ones). Two of them waltzing for 1 min would use
>almost 2 Gb of mesh2 and 2 Gb of obj.
>
 
Don't forget you can delete the OBJ files after you have converted them to mesh2
and if you only use one material include file you can delete the other includes.
I know it's only about 8k per frame but every little helps :-}
BTW if you use Moray you need an other UDO file at 1.3 Meg, again you don't need
to keep them all.
 
Regards
        Stephen

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Wasn't it Gilles Tran who wrote:
>"Mike Williams" <mik### [at] econymdemoncouk> a ?crit dans le message de
>news:ABHcuHA393V$Ew8p@econym.demon.co.uk...
>
>> Mesh file size                  3.7 Mb
>
>Actually, this is the figure for a naked and bald Poser 3 figure. A Michael
>or Victoria figure (which are the usual quality models to use with Poser)
>with clothes and hair is more like 15 Mb in mesh2 (and this is for a basic
>dress or hair, not elaborate ones). Two of them waltzing for 1 min would use
>almost 2 Gb of mesh2 and 2 Gb of obj.

I strongly suggest the use of reduced resolution DAZ figures for this
kind of work. I was using RR Victoria 2 in Poser 5. You'll only notice
the lack of resolution if you're doing closeups.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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news:OYkPYLA6w+V$EwNw@econym.demon.co.uk...

> I strongly suggest the use of reduced resolution DAZ figures for this
> kind of work. I was using RR Victoria 2 in Poser 5. You'll only notice
> the lack of resolution if you're doing closeups.

Thanks for the tip, it could be useful (and not only for animations).

G.

-- 

**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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