Best buys--a couple reviews

[Gary David Bouton]

Hi All--

I've got two "must haves" for our 3D documentations.

First, I got Poser 4 yesterday, and it's been totally reworked from where they get the body meshes right down to the interface. FINALLY, we get hair for our bald creations, but it only begins there. Animation is a heavy player in this version, and after working with it for a few hours, I got these talking people (lip movement can be controlled) and really feeling like I'm going to do the sequel to "Shrek" right on my Pentium!

My wife got it for me for an early birthday present, so I haven't a clue as to how much it costs (until the MasterCard statement comes), but this is a player. You can also export to Bryce, it has a horse you can animate (and perhaps make into a unicorn by adding a forehead spiral), a dolphin, blah, blah. Just get it.

Numero two here: get Flaming Pear's Lunar Cel. It does planets with cloud covers taken live online with the weather service, you can render to a Photoshop layer (oops, I forgot to mention that this is a Photoshop plug-in), determine cities on the planet, and the fractal stuff really adds credibility to the rendering.

Here's one with a KPT 6 Scene Builder saucer in the image. Look Ma; no hands and no talent! 8^)


Kindest Regards,

Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!

[Gary David Bouton]

Hi All--

I've got two "must haves" for our 3D documentations.

First, I got Poser 4 yesterday, and it's been totally reworked from where they get the body meshes right down to the interface. FINALLY, we get hair for our bald creations, but it only begins there. Animation is a heavy player in this version, and after working with it for a few hours, I got these talking people (lip movement can be controlled) and really feeling like I'm going to do the sequel to "Shrek" right on my Pentium!

My wife got it for me for an early birthday present, so I haven't a clue as to how much it costs (until the MasterCard statement comes), but this is a player. You can also export to Bryce, it has a horse you can animate (and perhaps make into a unicorn by adding a forehead spiral), a dolphin, blah, blah. Just get it.

Numero two here: get Flaming Pear's Lunar Cel. It does planets with cloud covers taken live online with the weather service, you can render to a Photoshop layer (oops, I forgot to mention that this is a Photoshop plug-in), determine cities on the planet, and the fractal stuff really adds credibility to the rendering.

Here's one with a KPT 6 Scene Builder saucer in the image. Look Ma; no hands and no talent! 8^)


Kindest Regards,

Gary David Bouton
www.boutons.com
Gary@GaryWorld.com
Visit a really large gallery at www.GaryWorld.com!

[s.winders]

Cute image Gary.


No talent?.....Like hell you dont have any talent [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]


Stu.

[Mark (theKeeper)]

I agree Gary, Poser is a great program.

I've been trying to get a better handle on creating custom clothing & skin textures. The app tends to have a habit of stretching textures; no matter how big or small you create them. But... doing a 'final render' seems to clean up any normally ugly pixel stretching.

Zygote has also created some really nice models for the newer version too. A lot more details have gone into the P4 models. They also sell a much larger collection onLine at the Website. I think "Vickie" is all the rage at the moment. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

If you need any tute links let me know.

Mark...

[Erik Heyninck]

You have also Cinema4D. Is it possible to use Poser images in Cinema? I read somewhere that Lightwave and 3DMax have no problem whatsoever importing from Poser.

On the downside: without wanting to critique the software, I've never seen anything done in Poser that outgrew the rigid pose and plasticine look of "fastfood" computer art. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I suppose it must be extremely difficult to make a relaxed pose. One needs a very high level knowledge of of anatomy and surface tensions.

I know someone who has Poser Pro Pack, Victoria and Michael, and it is impressing what can be done, but I've never seen any realism. It stays on the Barbie level. So who will break this spell, and go beyond the limitations set by others?

By the way: we should also add Infinity Textures to the tools (unfortunately only for PC):

http://www.i-tex.de


One of these days/weeks he'll release his version two, and that seems to be incredible. Version one is already, with all the different methods for seamless tiling et all...

And last but not least: for all PC users. I think I've found one of the most important sites on the web for everything concerning hardware and the different Windows versions:

http://www.pcnineoneone.com


PC help in PLAIN ENGLISH. Finally someone explains why I sometimes have memory problems with Win98SE. And what Win2K can do better.

If you don't work against time, time often works for you.

[Gary David Bouton]

Erik--

Don't believe everything you read. Except what I write [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Memory under Win2000 can still get banged if you run several 16 bit applications. I don't know about everyone else, but I have sopme 16 bit legacy apps that I still find useful.

What's really useful is Partition Commander. I have a multi boot on my "good" machine so I can boot into Windows 3.1, WinME, and Windows 2000.

So I'm not violating memory handling and Virtual Machines all the time.


My Best,

Gary David Bouton
Gary@GaryDavidBouton.com
Free education! The Writings Web site
and the updated GaryWorld Gallery is pretty okay, too.