Wasn't it Dan P who wrote:
>Has anyone determined if they can convert/import Poser 5 models to PovRay?
>If so, are there limitations? I've been doing a lot of Google searches and
>have only found references to Poser X <= 4. Money is tight for the Danster
>and I only want to invest in Poser 5 if I'm sure I can cleanly put my models
>in PovRAY.

The techniques for Poser 4 work for Poser 5 except for the handling of
strand based hair.

P5 strand based hair is saved as guide strands, not a polygon mesh. I'm
not aware of any method of converting this data into anything that can
be correctly rendered in anything else.

If there were to be something that would correctly convert strand based
hair to POV format it would have to use the guide hair information to
generate the *actual* hairs. It would probably also have to work from
actual Poser data files, because most of the export formats don't
support all the information required to rebuild the hair correctly. E.g.
in OBJ format there doesn't appear to be any information about how many
actual hairs to generate per guide strand nor any information about how
the radius of the strand changes along the length of the hair.

In practice, very few P5 users end up using strand based hair to any
great extent. It's an absolute pain to get it to look anything like
reasonable, and it renders slowly in P5 itself. If you look at any forum
where Poser 5 images are posted you'll see very few that use strand
based hair.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

Post a reply to this message

"Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
news:Uk4NlDAd46$$Ewd$@econym.demon.co.uk...

> The techniques for Poser 4 work for Poser 5 except for the handling of
> strand based hair.
>
> P5 strand based hair is saved as guide strands, not a polygon mesh. I'm
> not aware of any method of converting this data into anything that can
> be correctly rendered in anything else.
>
> If there were to be something that would correctly convert strand based
> hair to POV format it would have to use the guide hair information to
> generate the *actual* hairs. It would probably also have to work from
> actual Poser data files, because most of the export formats don't
> support all the information required to rebuild the hair correctly. E.g.
> in OBJ format there doesn't appear to be any information about how many
> actual hairs to generate per guide strand nor any information about how
> the radius of the strand changes along the length of the hair.
>
> In practice, very few P5 users end up using strand based hair to any
> great extent. It's an absolute pain to get it to look anything like
> reasonable, and it renders slowly in P5 itself. If you look at any forum
> where Poser 5 images are posted you'll see very few that use strand
> based hair.
>

Very true.  I posted an attempt (in p.a-u) to get Poser 5 dynamic hair to
work in a somewhat reasonable manner.  I think it might be possible, but I
eventually gave up the pursuit (at least for now), thinking that it was just
too difficult, and the benefits weren't enough to make me continue.  And, as
you said, I'm still not completely sold on the idea of dynamic hair.  It
sounds good, but my results (in P5) just weren't any more impressive than
using other types of hair.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

Post a reply to this message

Sorry, I didn't see your post last night, or I would have replied.

I'm also new to Poser 5, having bought it just a few weeks ago.  Make sure
you download the latest service pack (SP3), though.  It makes a big
difference.  Also, I've heard that you should have at least 512MB of RAM for
it to run in a stable manner, but if you're using it fine with with less,
good for you.

PoseRay is an amazing tool.  I'm very impressed with how far FlyerX has
taken it in just the past year.  Before that, converting Poser models was an
arduous process.  It's still not the easiest thing, though.  I'm still
learning many of the in's-and-out's of using it as well.

I've sometimes thought that we should have a povray.poser group here because
of all of the Poser users we have.  Personally, I'm never quite sure where
to post on that topic.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com
"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:3fff99a0$1@news.povray.org...
> "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message news:3fff65b8
> > Alright, I've decided I have no choice; I have to take the risk if I'm
> going
> > to make this game. So, I'll get on this and report my findings regarding
> > Poser 5. :-)
> >
>
> To close my own thread, yes; Poser5 works with Povray by outputting a
> Wavefront .obj object and converting it with PoseRay. No weirdness hath I
> found. But, I'm a fairly new Poser user.
>
> (Whew... money wasn't wasted. In fact, Poser5 seems to be well worth the
> cash!!!)
>
>

Post a reply to this message

"Jeremy M. Praay" <sla### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:40005eea@news.povray.org...
> "Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
> news:Uk4NlDAd46$$Ewd$@econym.demon.co.uk...
<snip>

> Very true.  I posted an attempt (in p.a-u) to get Poser 5 dynamic hair to
> work in a somewhat reasonable manner.  I think it might be possible, but I
> eventually gave up the pursuit (at least for now), thinking that it was
just
> too difficult, and the benefits weren't enough to make me continue.  And,
as
> you said, I'm still not completely sold on the idea of dynamic hair.  It
> sounds good, but my results (in P5) just weren't any more impressive than
> using other types of hair.

At least PovRay did render the guide hairs, though. I thickened the guide
hairs to 0.0004 in the .inc file and got some results (it looked like a mop,
though). You're right, though; PoseRay, although worked perfectly for
converting the .OBJ files to .INC so there's no risk to getting Poser5 and
not being able to create PovRay models (which was my main concern), the
dynamic hair thing just didn't seem to be economical yet.

I run a 1.5 Ghz machine with 1G of memory and it still took a while to parse
it out in PovRay with just the guide hairs alone. The feature works really
good, though; the computer technology just has to catch up to it yet.

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:4000a123$1@news.povray.org...
> "Jeremy M. Praay" <sla### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
> news:40005eea@news.povray.org...
> > "Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
> > news:Uk4NlDAd46$$Ewd$@econym.demon.co.uk...
> <snip>
>
<Hack!>

no problem getting the figures into POV-Ray, the problem is getting them
posed so they fit where you want them to.  IF you want them sitting on a
chair generated in POV, poser won't import the chair so you can see it to
make the figure fit.

Post a reply to this message

In article <4000a123$1@news.povray.org>,
 "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

> At least PovRay did render the guide hairs, though. I thickened the guide
> hairs to 0.0004 in the .inc file and got some results (it looked like a mop,
> though). You're right, though; PoseRay, although worked perfectly for
> converting the .OBJ files to .INC so there's no risk to getting Poser5 and
> not being able to create PovRay models (which was my main concern), the
> dynamic hair thing just didn't seem to be economical yet.

Raytracing isn't very good at rendering very small objects...such 
objects can easily fall between pixels, and tracing enough additional 
samples to catch them is time consuming. I've been thinking about 
various possibilities with media using direction-dependent 
textures...I've already done some tests, though with a function pattern 
(using my function pattern extensions) on a surface rather than in 
media. Perhaps this can help fill out hair generated through actual 
geometry...and this is another area where some form of variable 
antialiasing would be useful.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: <chr### [at] tagpovrayorg>
http://tag.povray.org/

Post a reply to this message

"GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message news:4000a697
<Chop!>
> no problem getting the figures into POV-Ray, the problem is getting them
> posed so they fit where you want them to.  IF you want them sitting on a
> chair generated in POV, poser won't import the chair so you can see it to
> make the figure fit.

Perhaps a good way to do this would be to create a patch in SPatch/HamaPatch
that generally conforms to the same dimensions of the chair (but with
considerably less detail). When Poser exports the scene to Wavefront .obj,
and then PoseRay exports the .obj to .pov, the chair will be isolated in
your .pov file. Then, just replace the chair patch with your real chair (in
what ever method you used to make it -- very likely not a patch, of course,
if it is made in PovRay alone).

Post a reply to this message

"Christopher James Huff" <cja### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message
news:cja### [at] netplexaussieorg...
<snip>

> Raytracing isn't very good at rendering very small objects...such
> objects can easily fall between pixels, and tracing enough additional
> samples to catch them is time consuming. I've been thinking about
> various possibilities with media using direction-dependent
> textures...I've already done some tests, though with a function pattern
> (using my function pattern extensions) on a surface rather than in
> media. Perhaps this can help fill out hair generated through actual
> geometry...and this is another area where some form of variable
> antialiasing would be useful.

What an interesting idea! It might take an eon to render, but it would
definitely make amazing hair. Using the exported guide-hairs, you could use
an isosurface and fill-in between them using some custom function (perhaps
build it into MegaPov initially?). It would be pretty hard-work unless
you're a math wiz. If you are, man, you'll be a hero!

Post a reply to this message

"Jeremy M. Praay" wrote:


> I've sometimes thought that we should have a povray.poser group here because
> of all of the Poser users we have.  Personally, I'm never quite sure where
> to post on that topic.

If you start a thread in .general, and there is sufficient public interest, I
will bring it to the attention of the people who make decisions of that type.

If public interest is low, it probably won't happen.

-- 
Ken Tyler

Post a reply to this message

In article <4000b0b1$1@news.povray.org>,
 "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

> What an interesting idea! It might take an eon to render, but it would
> definitely make amazing hair.

Well, taking a single media sample ought to be faster than testing for 
intersection with a complex hair object, and you should be able to get 
good results with fewer media samples than you would have hair 
intersection tests. Not fast, but almost certainly faster...hopefully.


> Using the exported guide-hairs, you could use
> an isosurface and fill-in between them using some custom function (perhaps
> build it into MegaPov initially?). It would be pretty hard-work unless
> you're a math wiz. If you are, man, you'll be a hero!

The media-hair would give the hair more body, the true-hair would be a 
visual cue to tell the viewer's brain that it really is hair. (A mass of 
something that looks like it might be hair should look much more like 
hair if you can see a few actual hairs.)

And what I actually had in mind was using the function to create some 
true-geometry hairs to keep the overall appearance from looking fuzzy or 
blurry, but that would require modeling the hair direction with a 
density field, which most people probably aren't going to want to do. 
Hmm...one way would be to find the closest point on the nearest guide 
hair, and use the direction of the hair at that point, maybe with some 
noise mixed in. Sounds slow, though. Maybe do something like a blob 
pattern with the guard hairs, compute a weighted average of hair 
directions...should be much faster, and give smooth transitions between 
guide hairs.

Simple angle-dependence isn't enough for it though...it would need to 
react to light sources as well, and hard coding them into the density 
would be impractical. Basically, the media density needs to be a 
complete texture.

-- 
Christopher James Huff <cja### [at] earthlinknet>
http://home.earthlink.net/~cjameshuff/
POV-Ray TAG: <chr### [at] tagpovrayorg>
http://tag.povray.org/

Post a reply to this message