Poser and CGI Thread

[Dave2112]

**Post removed**

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Bryce 3D

I've decided to go in a slightly different direction with the CGI stuff and use Bryce 3D to create backgrounds for my art. I've tried poser before...just didnt agree with me...😡 😛 Bryce is great for doing skylines. Hell, I got a full version of it with plug-ins and all off of Kazaa Lite...

Now if only this unholy bitch of a scanner what start working....THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!!!

 

[critterlord]

I just wanted to say that although my budget will not allow purchase of new computer materials, I definetely like CGI pics. They come across as more real than art, but more friendly than real pics.

Also I would like to add my efforts to curing Cheshire's scanner.

-Dances around computer with a wand made of bamboo and feathers, spounting bizzare mumbo jumbo.-

I hope my contribution helps.

 

[kurchatovium]

Thanks for starting the thread Dave2112. I think it will help all of us 3D artists out there.

I love Bryce. I use it to make neat landscapes and such. I have had an easier time making stuff with it than with Poser.

What systems are you guys using to run Poser? It seems to take forever sometime to render a picture.

 

[Lost_Plains]

Poser, UV Mapper, Ray Dream Studio + Photoshop... anything is possible!

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Photoshop......mmm...

I loves me my photoshop....yes indeedly doodly. Had to take 3 consecutive classes on it in the Art School I went to. I know it pretty damn well at this point. Would you believe I was one quarter away from learning both Flash and 3D Studio Max before I had to transfer? 😡 Ah well...

Getting back on topic, I'm to much of a traditionalist to do the CGI character stuff. Hell I still prefer my original 8-bit nintendo to my PS2. I dunno...unless its something I've physically drawn with my own two hands (not generated) I dont feel as if I've accomplished anything. But I dont mind using Bryce to help with some of the background art because thats something I lack in, drawing scenery...

You know they hardly ever teach anyone the traditonal cell animation anymore? Its all digital....sad really...it'll be a dead art soon.....

 

[grippedchimp]

I was gonna take up Photoshop at an art college, but for a few classes, they were expensive. I've recently started to use Paint Shop Pro 7, and I'm getting decent at it. Well, I had to move away from the felt pens one day! So in the near future, my art will be in CG! I myself prefer to draw freehand. Poser or related programs are decent, but with drawing, it's a little easier to make the characterthe way you want it.

 

[kurchatovium]

I use Paint Shop Pro as well its a good program for the money.

 

[Dave2112]

Chimp, you'd be surprised at how much of an artistic eye you need for really good Poser work. I wish I could draw as well as a lot of you guys, but alas...it gets lost somewhere between my brain and my hand. Funny, being a musician you'd figure that wouldn't be a problem.🙄

Many people have a misconception that Poser does everything for you. All it really does is give you the tools. Just as you have to draw and color in skin tones, a CGI artist has to properly apply texture mapping, to keep the figures from looking like the default "clay". Just as a hand-artist has to work with perspective, a Poser artist must adjust multi-axis camera angles, even incorporating some photography science in focal lengths and such. Lighting is another issue that separates the novice from advanced Poser users...as a photographer would know, lighting depth, color, diffusion and direction can affect a picture's overall look drastically.

This is a good tool for folks like myself with an artistic eye and creative vision, but without the considerable motor skills involved. It's simply a different set of tools. If you look around at all of the work the Poser community creates and posts to the Internet...including genres other than our own; you can see a host of skill-levels, just as you can in the world of drawn art. Some are simply better than others at it, some have different styles than others. I can identify a Chimp piece or an Ozzy piece or an FTKL piece on sight alone. The same can be said for many of the really good Poser artists like ThralLord, AlekNest, Dendras...certain identifyable styles. This wouldn't be possible if the computer did it all for you. Poser just forces you into thinking in three dimensions.

Since you guys were talking about other tools you use...the only other things I really use in creating my stuff is ArcSoft PhotoStudio. I think I'm one of the few who doesn't use some version of PhotoShop. Actually, ArcSoft is the photostudio that came bundled with my HP, and I've been pretty happy with it. My cousin ripped my a version of PhotoShop 6, but after taking up space on my hard drive, I discovered that there wasn't anything I was using Adobe for that I couldn't do in ArcSoft. So, I went back to the original and freed up some disc space. There's another place where you really need to have artistic talent. When fixing some rendering or posing mistakes in photostudio, some of that work is pixel-by-pixel...matching shades and compensating for light variances. I do a lot more post-render work on my Star-Wars art than anything else, though. You have to rotoscope the lightsaber effect in ArcSoft, as Poser won't render anything quite like that.

I used Bryce on a few early things, but haven't gotten much into it. I got my software for nothing, so I had to figure things out by trial-and-error. I never really dug that deep into Bryce, but I'm thinking of toying with it a bit more and reincorporating it into my work.

Still wish I could draw, though. 😎

 

[kurchatovium]

Dave, Bryce is really cool for landscapes and stuff and one can make some really neat things with it. I have actually played with Bryce a lot more. It is easier to use than Poser but that is because what Poser does is very complicated.

Dave, I think I initially thought the same thing with Poser that it would do everything. I found out slowly like you said if you don't get the lighting right your charcters are sitting in the dark when you render them. Also like you said it takes a lot of time to get all the other elements like hand, face, and overall pose right so the scene looks realistic. Of course I am very, very far from that point now but I am learning.

 

[kurchatovium]

Here is an example of what I did with Bryce. It has nothing to do with tickling but I thought it might be interesting to see.

 

[Dave2112]

Neat! I never really got into anything like that, using it more for landscaping and such. I like that, it's pretty cool. I'll have to get back into Bryce.

 

[kurchatovium]

Thanks Dave. You can do some pretty cool stuff with Bryce. I like making alien landscapes mainly. But I also fool around with other things. Like reflection and refraction tricks to create some weird looking stuff. Of course those things take forever to render because of all the computations required for reflection and refraction. What I really like about Bryce is it is easy to let your imagination go wild and create some really interesting stuff. Also I am by no means an expert on Bryce. I'm still fairly new at it and I can still turn out some halfway decent stuff.