On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:03:24 -0600, "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote:

>Well, I'm not gonna be stuck with paying for clothes.

Goes against the grain for me too.
Try using CR2 Editor to change your clothes That and other useful Poser links
can be found at.
http://www.philc.net/links.htm


Regards
        Stephen

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"Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
news:In1### [at] econymdemoncouk...
> Wasn't it Dan P who wrote:
> >
> >Argh. I'm hating the fact that there just aren't enough clothes available
in
> >the install.
>
> Including the contents disk, Poser 5 comes with over 200 items of
> clothing. (OK, many of them are specific to one character, so there's
> only about 50 items of clothing that fit any particular character
> without tweaking them yourself or using something like Tailor).
>
> That's not bad at the price, considering how much work goes into
> building clothes models from scratch.

Yeah, I'm still trying to master that. Not liking the Poser manual either.
When I finally figure this stuff out, I'm going to write my own tutorial to
set this thing straight.

> There's also an awful lot of free poser clothes out there. Some of it is
> quite reasonable, but it does tend to be mainly exotic and fantasy
> clothing.

Yep, but... well, the struggle... I like the struggle. :-)

> You can tweak any of the clothing items by changing the textures, using
> transparency maps to cut bits away, scaling parts of the clothing, using
> deformation maps, applying magnets, etc.

Sure, but does this work with specular highlights as well, or do those just
come out looking like clear plastic?

> The transparency map technique can be particularly useful. You can cut
> down any existing item of clothing. If the clothing item doesn't come
> with a template, then use UVMapper (free) to generate one. Paint a
> transparency map image black for the bits you want to cut away and white
> for the bits you want to keep.

Thanks for the ref to UVMapper! I'll get that one for sure.

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One thing I'm really learning as I go on is that I really have to read every
letter of the 389 page manual for this thing. Also, the hair is actually
pretty cool when rendered in FireFly -- I plan to composite Poser Images in
PovRay scenes by ensuring the lighting and camera angles are perfectly
correct. I couldn't live without isosurfaces :-)

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Wasn't it Dan P who wrote:
>"Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
>news:In1### [at] econymdemoncouk...
>>
>> That's not bad at the price, considering how much work goes into
>> building clothes models from scratch.
>
>Yeah, I'm still trying to master that. Not liking the Poser manual either.
>When I finally figure this stuff out, I'm going to write my own tutorial to
>set this thing straight.

Good luck. I reckon that the Poser manual is pretty good at covering a
difficult subject, but if you can do better then I look forward to it.

Obviously, the manual omits details of techniques that illegally
"borrow" the geometry of proprietary figure models to use as the basis
for clothes models.

>> You can tweak any of the clothing items by changing the textures, using
>> transparency maps to cut bits away, scaling parts of the clothing, using
>> deformation maps, applying magnets, etc.
>
>Sure, but does this work with specular highlights as well, or do those just
>come out looking like clear plastic?

P5 allows complete invisibility.

In Poser-4 transparent objects with specularity looked like clear
plastic, because you couldn't create a specularity map. Poser-5 has a
fully functional node-based shader system, so you can simply create a
link from Specular_Value to the image_map node you're using for
transparency to use it as a specularity map, and the clear plastic bits
will become completely invisible.

If your clothes use Reflection, Refraction, Alternate_diffuse or
Alternate_Specular then you'll need to use the same method to switch
those features off in the transparent region.

When you import the mesh into POV-Ray, you need to ensure that there's
no specularity in that half of the texture_map. (Works with Poser-4 as
well as Poser-5).

 pigment_pattern {image_map {jpeg "transmap.jpg" interpolate 2}}
  texture_map {
     [0 texture {pigment {rgbt <0,0,0,1>}}]
     [1 texture {My_Specular_Texture}]
  }      

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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"Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
news:t7n### [at] econymdemoncouk...
<snip>
> Good luck. I reckon that the Poser manual is pretty good at covering a
> difficult subject, but if you can do better then I look forward to it.

Thanks :-) I've gotta knack for communicating things like this.

> Obviously, the manual omits details of techniques that illegally
> "borrow" the geometry of proprietary figure models to use as the basis
> for clothes models.

It isn't illegal to create derivitive works from another work of art and
sell it so long as it is clearly distinguishible from the original. Here is
some supporting text from
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

"A 'useful article' is an article having an intrinsic utilitar-ian function
that is not merely to portray the appearance of the article or to convey
information. Examples are clothing, furniture, machinery, dinnerware, and
lighting fixtures. An article that is normally part of a useful article may
itself be a useful article, for example, an ornamental wheel cover on a
vehicle.

"Copyright does not protect the mechanical or utilitarian aspects of such
works of craftsmanship. It may, however, protect any pictorial, graphic, or
sculptural authorship that can be identified separately from the utilitarian
aspects of an object. Thus, a useful article may have both copyrightable and
uncopyrightable features. For example, a carving on the back of a chair or a
floral relief design on silver flatware could be protected by copyright, but
the design of the chair or flatware itself could not."

ALSO

"Copyright in a work that portrays a useful article extends only to the
artistic expression of the author of the pictorial, graphic, or sculptural
work. It does not extend to the design of the article that is portrayed. For
example, a drawing or photo-graph of an automobile or a dress design may be
copyrighted, but that does not give the artist or photographer the exclusive
right to make automobiles or dresses of the same design."

<snip>
> >Sure, but does this work with specular highlights as well, or do those
just
> >come out looking like clear plastic?
>
> P5 allows complete invisibility.
>
> In Poser-4 transparent objects with specularity looked like clear
> plastic, because you couldn't create a specularity map. Poser-5 has a
> fully functional node-based shader system, so you can simply create a
> link from Specular_Value to the image_map node you're using for
> transparency to use it as a specularity map, and the clear plastic bits
> will become completely invisible.

Cool! What about collisions?

> If your clothes use Reflection, Refraction, Alternate_diffuse or
> Alternate_Specular then you'll need to use the same method to switch
> those features off in the transparent region.
>
> When you import the mesh into POV-Ray, you need to ensure that there's
> no specularity in that half of the texture_map. (Works with Poser-4 as
> well as Poser-5).
>
>  pigment_pattern {image_map {jpeg "transmap.jpg" interpolate 2}}
>   texture_map {
>      [0 texture {pigment {rgbt <0,0,0,1>}}]
>      [1 texture {My_Specular_Texture}]
>   }

Thanks for the code!!

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Wasn't it Dan P who wrote:
>"Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> wrote in message
>news:t7n### [at] econymdemoncouk...
><snip>
>> Good luck. I reckon that the Poser manual is pretty good at covering a
>> difficult subject, but if you can do better then I look forward to it.
>
>Thanks :-) I've gotta knack for communicating things like this.
>
>> Obviously, the manual omits details of techniques that illegally
>> "borrow" the geometry of proprietary figure models to use as the basis
>> for clothes models.
>
>It isn't illegal to create derivitive works from another work of art and
>sell it so long as it is clearly distinguishible from the original. Here is
>some supporting text from
>http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

I thought that that part of the P5 EULA was legally binding. Curious
Labs went to considerable lengths with the set up of the part of the
license that covers the use of proprietary geometry from restricted
content data because they'd had problems when they tried to prosecute
clothes-makers who stole the geometry of P4 models.

I didn't follow the legal arguments, but there was considerable
discussion at the time on alt.binaries.3d.poser where it was reckoned to
be fairly solid. Unfortunately the discussion is not archived on Google
Groups because of the word "binaries" in the group name.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

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news:4005d486$1@news.povray.org...

> It isn't illegal to create derivitive works from another work of art and
> sell it so long as it is clearly distinguishible from the original. Here
is
> some supporting text from
> http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf

What Mike said. Model (and textures) copyright issues are one of the most
sensitive topics in the Poser world. There has been a lot of name-calling
over this, and CuriousLabs and DAZ sort of divorced because of it (there
were other issues though). In any case, tread carefully if you ever intend
to distribute derivative models.

G.

-- 

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

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"Gilles Tran" <tra### [at] inapginrafr> wrote in message
news:4006a536@news.povray.org...

> news:4005d486$1@news.povray.org...
>
> > It isn't illegal to create derivitive works from another work of art and
> > sell it so long as it is clearly distinguishible from the original. Here
> is
> > some supporting text from
> > http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ40.pdf
>
> What Mike said. Model (and textures) copyright issues are one of the most
> sensitive topics in the Poser world. There has been a lot of name-calling
> over this, and CuriousLabs and DAZ sort of divorced because of it (there
> were other issues though). In any case, tread carefully if you ever intend
> to distribute derivative models.
>


Isn't this sort of like shooting yourself in the foot?  To me, this ranks up
there with Paramount shutting down Star Trek fan-sites that displayed
pictures of the Enterprise.

There's nothing like pissing-off your user-base and generally making people
afraid to develop useful things for Poser, out of fear of Curious Labs
taking legal action.  I'm sure their flip-side is that if they develop their
own clothes (etc), you'll be forced to buy them, because no one else can
develop them specifically for their models.  IMHO, that makes sense in some
markets, but doesn't make sense in this case, where their user-base is more
of a community, rather than "customers."  Imagine if Microsoft created
Windows (TM) such that no one else was allowed to use their API's.

But even if Curious Labs' EULA is not legally binding in the manner in which
they claim, I'm personally not willing to fight that battle.  Even if you
win, you lose lots of money.  Licenses and Copyrights are two different
issues, regardless.  A license could prohibit you from doing lots of things
which are legal under the law.  Once you sign the license (or open a
software package is the same as agreeing to the license), you are generally
bound by its terms (there can be exceptions where the law gives you certain
consumer rights, for which no license can permit you to revoke).

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

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"Jeremy M. Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecom> wrote in message news:4006e4c6
<snip>
> There's nothing like pissing-off your user-base and generally making
people
> afraid to develop useful things for Poser, out of fear of Curious Labs
> taking legal action.  I'm sure their flip-side is that if they develop
their
> own clothes (etc), you'll be forced to buy them, because no one else can
> develop them specifically for their models.  IMHO, that makes sense in
some
> markets, but doesn't make sense in this case, where their user-base is
more
> of a community, rather than "customers."  Imagine if Microsoft created
> Windows (TM) such that no one else was allowed to use their API's.

Very, very well said.

> <snip>... there can be exceptions where the law gives you certain
> consumer rights, for which no license can permit you to revoke).

I remember reading the EULA pretty closely before I bought it and it states
that you can't distribute original geometry, but you can do whatever you
want to with the output (images, movies). I suppose if you want to sell
clothes for Poser, you'll want to sell through their Content Paradise site.

The thing about Poser is that you pretty much HAVE to start from their
figure geometry in order to make these clothes reasonably close-fitting. I
don't know what kind of leg they'd have to stand on based on the limitations
of their software. Most of the shirts and stuff is just a matter of grabbing
a polygon group and dropping it into a patch editor to alter a few points.

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"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:40072adc$1@news.povray.org...

> The thing about Poser is that you pretty much HAVE to start from their
> figure geometry in order to make these clothes reasonably close-fitting. I
> don't know what kind of leg they'd have to stand on based on the
limitations
> of their software. Most of the shirts and stuff is just a matter of
grabbing
> a polygon group and dropping it into a patch editor to alter a few points.
>
Check Renderosity, and take a look in the free stuff section.  Lot's
clothes, rings etc. for all of the poser models, even some pretty nifty
morphs of the standard figures.  Seems to be no problem making things to fit
the models, even to new faces for them, as long as they're compatible, but
not based an exact match for the original geometry.  (Or textures, or uvmap
or ad nauseum.)  Copyright squabbles are frequent. Gives me the impression
that pretty soon you won't be able to model your own face without someone
saying you stole it from them.  One exception, MayaDoll, probably one of the
best of the free models, and the designer says use it, modify it, do
anything you want with it.  Not much in the line of clothes for her, lots of
room to play for someone with more talent that I have.

Rich

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