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.

Thanks!

-- 
- Respectfully,
Dan

"When it is not in our power to follow what is true,
we ought to follow what is most probable."
                                         - Rene Descartes

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:3fff56fa$1@news.povray.org...
> 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.
>
> Thanks!

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. :-)

Post a reply to this message

"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

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

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:4000afe0@news.povray.org...
> "GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message news:4000a697
> <Chop!>
<Hack!>

>
> 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).
>
Been doing basically the same in Wings3d, just boxes, once it's posed,
delete the prop and  export only the figure.   Works, but clumsy.

Rich

Post a reply to this message

> > "GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message news:4000a697
> >
> > 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).
> >
> Been doing basically the same in Wings3d, just boxes, once it's posed,
> delete the prop and  export only the figure.   Works, but clumsy.


This is where standardized units are handy.  I always use Ft & In in POV, so
I made a ruler-grid wall prop for Poser with the Ft & In marked on it, then
I can pose my figure next to the wall and put hands, feet, whatever in the
right place.  That way one prop works for all scenes rather than have to
make dummy props for every scene.

That's how I placed the referee's hand on the ropes in my IRTC decay entry
(http://www.irtc.org/ftp/pub/stills/2003-10-31/champ_rg.jpg).   I knew the
rope at the corner is 4'5" and drops 2.5 inches in the middle, so I raised
his hand to 4'3" and it was almost perfect.  Works for sitting, leaning,
anything you know the dimensions in advance. (Actually I don't even need to
know in advance if I'm modelling it in POV, since I can set it to exactly
the dimensions I want)

I even used it once to pose a guy on a unicycle. I just needed to know the
distance from the lowest pedal to the seat, and the distance between pedals,
and it worked great.  The hardest part is figuring out your scale in Poser,
which doesn't seem to match any other modeling program I use...  In the end
I just decided the default poser guy is 6Ft tall and worked from there.

RG

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de
news:3fff56fa$1@news.povray.org...
> Has anyone determined if they can convert/import Poser 5 models to PovRay?
> If so, are there limitations?

In addition to what other people said, the main "limitation" is simply that
Poser 5 is still just a posing tool (at least from a POV-Ray point of view -
there are lots of people who use it for rendering and then photoshop the
results). While this version is shipped with much better models than the
previous ones, Poser is dependent on the models imported into it, and the
best ones (characters, hair, clothes, textures, poses) are commercial. You
may want to have a little budget for this otherwise you'll be stuck with the
original Poser models and the few free ones of decent quality.
Another limitation is animation : Poser can do very nice character
animation, but to get this into POV-Ray (and into other software in fact)
isn't straightforward and requires exporting each frame.

G.


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

Post a reply to this message

"gonzo" <rgo### [at] lansetcom> wrote in message news:4000e3b2@news.povray.org...
> > > "GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message news:4000a697

>  The hardest part is figuring out your scale in Poser,
> which doesn't seem to match any other modeling program I use...  In the
end
> I just decided the default poser guy is 6Ft tall and worked from there.
>
It's even worse than that, from some of the threads I've been reading, Don
is six feet, or maybe five foot nine, and Vicky is something over six feet.
Poser modelers don't seem to have a uniform scale.  In POV-Ray, I use two
scales, one POV unit = one foot, and Ten POV units = one foot for smaller
objects.  Any object I'm going to be re-using becomes an .inc file, and yes,
my include directory is a mess.  Works for me, YMMV.

Post a reply to this message

"Gilles Tran" <gitran_nospam_@wanadoo.fr> wrote in message
news:40015e12$1@news.povray.org...
<snip>
> In addition to what other people said, the main "limitation" is simply
that
> Poser 5 is still just a posing tool (at least from a POV-Ray point of
view -
> there are lots of people who use it for rendering and then photoshop the
> results). While this version is shipped with much better models than the
> previous ones, Poser is dependent on the models imported into it, and the
> best ones (characters, hair, clothes, textures, poses) are commercial. You
> may want to have a little budget for this otherwise you'll be stuck with
the
> original Poser models and the few free ones of decent quality.
> Another limitation is animation : Poser can do very nice character
> animation, but to get this into POV-Ray (and into other software in fact)
> isn't straightforward and requires exporting each frame.

I really only bought Poser for the models and the posing anyway. I started
trying to build my own human patches and decided it was worth the $250 to
get a tool where I could start with a base model (like Don), do changes to
the parameters on the face, body, etc., and just export the thing complete
with clothing, posed and such. For what it claims to do, it does it very
well, and for a reasonable price. Without it, getting human characters
(among other characters -- I'm building a FF like game) would be
prohibitively complex.

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:4001ac9f$1@news.povray.org...
<snip>
> I really only bought Poser for the models and the posing anyway. I started
> trying to build my own human patches and decided it was worth the $250 to
> get a tool where I could start with a base model (like Don), do changes to
> the parameters on the face, body, etc., and just export the thing complete
> with clothing, posed and such. For what it claims to do, it does it very
> well, and for a reasonable price. Without it, getting human characters
> (among other characters -- I'm building a FF like game) would be
> prohibitively complex.

Argh. I'm hating the fact that there just aren't enough clothes available in
the install. Trying to build my own using HamaPatch is turning out to be
tough -- just getting the model into HamaPatch is my first hurdle (IOBrowser
doesn't do a good job).

Post a reply to this message

Ok... I'll bite.  Forgive me if this is obvious to everyone else but I don't
play many games.  What is a FF like game?

Just curious,
Carl

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote
> (among other characters -- I'm building a FF like game)

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de
news:4001fe7e@news.povray.org...

> Argh. I'm hating the fact that there just aren't enough clothes available
in
> the install. Trying to build my own using HamaPatch is turning out to be
> tough -- just getting the model into HamaPatch is my first hurdle
(IOBrowser
> doesn't do a good job).

Well, welcome to Poserland, whose inhabitants are supposed to go around
naked. Sometimes, they wear lingerie or SM gear ;-)
What sort of clothes are you trying to make?

G.

-- 

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

Post a reply to this message

"Gilles Tran" <tra### [at] inapginrafr> wrote in message
news:4002a518@news.povray.org...
> "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de
> news:4001fe7e@news.povray.org...
>
<Small Hack!>

> Well, welcome to Poserland, whose inhabitants are supposed to go around
> naked. Sometimes, they wear lingerie or SM gear ;-)

You forgot, they also are only found in temples.  (Or dungeons, or alien
labs.)

Not being artist enough, I'm pretty well stuck using what others have done,
unless it's a mechanical thing, then I can use a 3d CAD to build it.  People
designed in 3D CAD tend to look like robots, and if I clothe them, they're
wearing sheets of steel.  Not really what I want.

I really hate poser, but it's about all that's available without going into
the megabucks to get a posed figure.

Rich.

Post a reply to this message

"Carl Hoff" <hof### [at] wtnet> wrote in message
news:400251b2$1@news.povray.org...
> Ok... I'll bite.  Forgive me if this is obvious to everyone else but I
don't
> play many games.  What is a FF like game?

Final Fantasy :-)

Post a reply to this message

"GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message
news:4002c438$1@news.povray.org...
<snip>
> > Well, welcome to Poserland, whose inhabitants are supposed to go around
> > naked. Sometimes, they wear lingerie or SM gear ;-)
>
> You forgot, they also are only found in temples.  (Or dungeons, or alien
> labs.)
>
> Not being artist enough, I'm pretty well stuck using what others have
done,
> unless it's a mechanical thing, then I can use a 3d CAD to build it.
People
> designed in 3D CAD tend to look like robots, and if I clothe them, they're
> wearing sheets of steel.  Not really what I want.
>
> I really hate poser, but it's about all that's available without going
into
> the megabucks to get a posed figure.

Well, I'm not gonna be stuck with paying for clothes. I'm going to look into
a clean way to get the Judy and Don figure into HamaPatch (or just SPatch).
Might have to code it. If anyone has a solution already, I'm all ears (and
nose, hips, etc.)

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:400335ca$1@news.povray.org...
> "GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message
> news:4002c438$1@news.povray.org...
> <snip>
> > > Well, welcome to Poserland, whose inhabitants are supposed to go
around
> > > naked. Sometimes, they wear lingerie or SM gear ;-)
> >
> > You forgot, they also are only found in temples.  (Or dungeons, or alien
> > labs.)
> >
> > Not being artist enough, I'm pretty well stuck using what others have
> done,
> > unless it's a mechanical thing, then I can use a 3d CAD to build it.
> People
> > designed in 3D CAD tend to look like robots, and if I clothe them,
they're
> > wearing sheets of steel.  Not really what I want.
> >
> > I really hate poser, but it's about all that's available without going
> into
> > the megabucks to get a posed figure.
>
> Well, I'm not gonna be stuck with paying for clothes. I'm going to look
into
> a clean way to get the Judy and Don figure into HamaPatch (or just
SPatch).
> Might have to code it. If anyone has a solution already, I'm all ears (and
> nose, hips, etc.)
>


Gilles posted this a few weeks ago.  I'm not sure what type of clothes you
are looking for, but there are a few really nice period dresses for the
standard poser models, as well as for the DAZ models.
http://www.poserfashion.net

Also, if you ever look for hair, Kozaburo's hair works quite well (not
dynamic), and can be found here http://www.digitalbabes2.com in the
downloads section.  Some of these are add-ons for DAZ hair, others are not.

Anyway, there is some good free stuff available out there for Poser.

Or you could get really good at creating nudes.  I've been quite impressed
with the life-like nature of some that I've seen.  In all seriousness, Poser
models generally look best that way.  It's unfortunate, but true, imho.  Add
clothes and the illusion gets diminished.  Having said that, I probably
won't be doing any nudes, but maybe I'll change my mind.  It's just "not my
bag", as Austin Powers would say.

I'm almost embarrassed to own Poser.  Simply browsing Renderosity gives me
the opinion that many of the Poser users (from what I can gather), bought it
to fullfill some sort of fantasies by being able to dress up (or not) girls
with --- (I'll stop.  You know where this is headed).  I'll try not to make
any judgements on those that do that, since "nobody's being harmed", but it
can make things difficult if you're not into creating
Sexy/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Adventure images.  I used to do Fantasy sketches, not
too many years ago, but it seems like there's just too much of that floating
around these days.  For me, it has lost its appeal simply because of the
dilution.  It seems like there are a million artists all trying to be Boris
Vallejo, and most... well... aren't.  But that's just my opinion.

-- 
Jeremy
www.beantoad.com

Post a reply to this message

Dan P wrote:
>Well, I'm not gonna be stuck with paying for clothes. I'm going to look into
>a clean way to get the Judy and Don figure into HamaPatch (or just SPatch).
>Might have to code it. If anyone has a solution already, I'm all ears (and
>nose, hips, etc.)


Don't know about Don or Judy, but I export my Poser figures as .obj, import
into Wing3d, export from Wings3d as .mdl, then import the .mdl into
HamaPatch.

Roundabout and slow, but works. If the clothing isn't too complex you can
just model it in Wings, but I find HamaPatch a little easier for most
things.  Wings is nice, but I'm just more used to working with splines than
subdivision modelling.

*tip: HamaPatch slows to a crawl with a full poser figure, so delete all
geometry you don't specifically need!  Also, HamaPatch's POV export is
usually smoother than converting with Poseray, but you have to remember to
reverse the handedness when you import into POV.

Good luck!

RG

Post a reply to this message

"Jeremy M. Praay" <sla### [at] hotmailcom> wrote in message
news:4003429d@news.povray.org...
> "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
> news:400335ca$1@news.povray.org...
> > "GreyBeard" <r.b### [at] sbcglobalnet> wrote in message
> > news:4002c438$1@news.povray.org...
> > <snip>
<snip>
> Gilles posted this a few weeks ago.  I'm not sure what type of clothes you
> are looking for, but there are a few really nice period dresses for the
> standard poser models, as well as for the DAZ models.
> http://www.poserfashion.net

I don't like to use other people's work. Not to diminish the other people's
work, but I'm not doing this game for money but to learn everything I can
and I feel like I'm cheating myself if I don't struggle and bleed every bit
of the way. I already feel guilty enough using the Poser models, but I'm not
good enough to make nudes yet so it would have served as a barrier to any
real progress.

> Also, if you ever look for hair, Kozaburo's hair works quite well (not
> dynamic), and can be found here http://www.digitalbabes2.com in the
> downloads section.  Some of these are add-ons for DAZ hair, others are
not.

Hey, isn't that a porn URL? :-)

> Anyway, there is some good free stuff available out there for Poser.
>
> Or you could get really good at creating nudes.  I've been quite impressed
> with the life-like nature of some that I've seen.  In all seriousness,
Poser
> models generally look best that way.  It's unfortunate, but true, imho.
Add
> clothes and the illusion gets diminished.  Having said that, I probably
> won't be doing any nudes, but maybe I'll change my mind.  It's just "not
my
> bag", as Austin Powers would say.

Yeah, baby.

> I'm almost embarrassed to own Poser.  Simply browsing Renderosity gives me
> the opinion that many of the Poser users (from what I can gather), bought
it
> to fullfill some sort of fantasies by being able to dress up (or not)
girls
> with --- (I'll stop.  You know where this is headed).  I'll try not to
make
> any judgements on those that do that, since "nobody's being harmed", but
it
> can make things difficult if you're not into creating
> Sexy/Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Adventure images.  I used to do Fantasy sketches, not
> too many years ago, but it seems like there's just too much of that
floating
> around these days.  For me, it has lost its appeal simply because of the
> dilution.  It seems like there are a million artists all trying to be
Boris
> Vallejo, and most... well... aren't.  But that's just my opinion.

Yeah, I feel the same way. The Content Paradise was just a... well, a place
for a drag queen to play. Most of the outfits don't look realistic enough
and those that do are too "period" for my characters (i.e. Chinese armor,
etc.)

Post a reply to this message

"gonzo" <rgo### [at] lansetcom> wrote in message
news:web.400342c6c24da78ea0c272b50@news.povray.org...
> Don't know about Don or Judy, but I export my Poser figures as .obj,
import
> into Wing3d, export from Wings3d as .mdl, then import the .mdl into
> HamaPatch.

Is Wing3d free?

> Roundabout and slow, but works. If the clothing isn't too complex you can
> just model it in Wings, but I find HamaPatch a little easier for most
> things.  Wings is nice, but I'm just more used to working with splines
than
> subdivision modelling.

Yeah. Hamapatch rules for splines. It's not bad for subdivision modelling
either, though :-)

> *tip: HamaPatch slows to a crawl with a full poser figure, so delete all
> geometry you don't specifically need!  Also, HamaPatch's POV export is
> usually smoother than converting with Poseray, but you have to remember to
> reverse the handedness when you import into POV.

Learned this one the hard-way.

> Good luck!
>
> RG

Thanks Gonzo! You know... I had a dog named Gonzo. Big airdale. :-)

Post a reply to this message

Dan P <dan### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:400358b9$1@news.povray.org...

> Is Wing3d free?

Yep.  Go here...  http://www.wings3d.com/

RG

Post a reply to this message

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

"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.

Post a reply to this message

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 :-)

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

"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!!

Post a reply to this message

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

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de
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

Post a reply to this message

"Gilles Tran" <tra### [at] inapginrafr> wrote in message
news:4006a536@news.povray.org...
> "Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de
> 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

Post a reply to this message

"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.

Post a reply to this message

"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

Post a reply to this message

"Dan P" <dan### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de
news:40072adc$1@news.povray.org...

> 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.

No, I don't think so. Content Paradise merchants also sell at Renderosity
and elsewhere and some have their own on-line shops. Poser-born geometries
have little marketing value actually and most of the goodies are made for
DAZ's and other models which are far more popular than the original Poser
ones. In fact EULA issues exist also for DAZ and other merchants. IIRC, it
all started when Zygote (former parent company of DAZ) and CL went to court
in Europe over someone selling their meshes and lost due to a too liberal
EULA at this time. Both companies became very cautious after that,
particularly as the market for Poser goods grew into a real cottage
industry. In any case, I think that the EULAs have been rewritten to take
care of the particular needs of the merchants.

> 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.

If you have a good modeller, there are fast methods that do not require
reusing the same polygons and give in fact better results. In Rhino, for
instance, you can use contour curves for this type of job. The only Poser
modelling that requires the original geometry is morph creation, but then
you do not have to disseminate the polygons, just the difference between
your morph and the original part, and the difference is 100% yours.

G.


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

Post a reply to this message

Wasn't it Gilles Tran who wrote:

>If you have a good modeller, there are fast methods that do not require
>reusing the same polygons and give in fact better results. In Rhino, for
>instance, you can use contour curves for this type of job.

I'm not familiar with Rhino, but if you're talking about some facility
that traces the shape of the underlying model, then I think that would
be considered to come under "other Derivative forms" and is restricted
by the EULA in the same way as re-triangulation of Restricted Content.

-- 
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

Post a reply to this message

"Mike Williams" <nos### [at] econymdemoncouk> a écrit dans le message de
news:GyQ### [at] econymdemoncouk...

> I'm not familiar with Rhino, but if you're talking about some facility
> that traces the shape of the underlying model, then I think that would
> be considered to come under "other Derivative forms" and is restricted
> by the EULA in the same way as re-triangulation of Restricted Content.

The curves are rebuilt and simplified, so there's nothing left from the
original geometry apart the global shape (and CL cannot claim to have a
patent on the human body shape...).
http://market.renderosity.com/~rhino/spiketuts/poserfigure/poserfigure.htm
The technique is used to create clothes and props and is promoted on the
Renderosity marketplace, which is a CL business partner, so I guess it's all
right.

G.


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

Post a reply to this message