ziotom wrote:
>>I know there are many different modellers, even for Linux. But what I'm
>>looking for is something similar to Poser or what you see being used for
>>Computer animated movies where you can define a model from a skeleton with
>>mass and flesh for posing and moving purposes which can then export the
>>results on a POV-Ray friendly format for rendering.
>
>Gosh, I think it is hard to find something like this. In fact, I searched
>for such a program some months ago, but I found nothing suitable. So, I
>resigned and bought Poser 4.0 for Windows (which was quite cheap, though).
>
Except that's not an option for me. I'll be re-building my home system from
scratch soon, so that means Linux only. POV-Ray will be my rendering
package, and I plan to use either the mpegtools or mplayers memcoder for
the video. I've also lined up some must-have audio tools as well.

>>Most of the modelling tools I have seen work with meshes or NURBS but these
>>do not lend themselves to the types of poses/motions I am looking for. Does
>>anyone know what I'm talking about, and better still can you recommend
>>something?
>
>The big problem comes from the way Poser handles rotations and other
>transformations. From what I've seen in one month of use, Poser knows about
>the human anatomy and lets you only to choose "realistic" moves for your
>characters. For instance, if you try to pull down one arm too much, then
>the character's back will begin to bend in order to "follow" the arm.
>Implementing these features in a computer program requires a deep study and
>a good knowledge of anatomy. This is probably the reason why Poser is
>unique.
>
Well, it's not only the 'human' models I want to be able to pose. Those are
just the most difficult, as you mention. I also want ot be able to design
mechanical devices that can be animated and articulated correctly. But the
real challenge is the human and other 'living' models. One technique that I
was very interested in was the one the used in Disney's Dinosaur movie.
They started with a skeletal armature. To this they attached 'muscles' that
would expand and contract realistically and then stretched a 'skin' over
this. That way, when they moved the armature, say the leg, the muscle would
warp realistically and the skin would follow this. Of course at the
rendering stage, you only need the resulting mesh and the textures to
render, but for the modelling and animation stage the underlying structures
are critical for the ultimate realism.

However, I did come across Equinox-3D which seems to have at least some of
the capabilities I'm looking for. So I'll see how that helps me.


Cheers,

     John Gay

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