Poser Pro

Since taking over Poser, SmithMicro have not been sitting back and milking the cash cow, instead they appear to have been beavering away to produce PoserPro. The new product is aimed at professional 3d artists.

This new version introduces 64bit rendering and network rendering providing a bit of grunt for the more demanding users. Early reports have indicated halving in render time and the change should also allow for larger images to be rendered utilising the larger memory space available.

There is also support for COLLADA but it can import less than it exports which might prove limiting for some people. This partial support for COLLADA seems to be missing the point to me but I suppose it looks good on the marketting material. The package also includes add-ins for 3ds Max, Maya and CINEMA 4D which again shows the limits of their COLLADA support.

Support for HDRI and Normal maps should help people generate more realistic results.

The price of the upgrade and from new cost will be restrictive to some but should not be an issue for professionals.


On a completely separate note, there is a alpha version of an Collada Plugin for Carrara this again provides limited imports and exports to the Collada format.

Poser Python the missing manual

I've been playing with python in Poser a bit and found the E-Frontier version was just a list of objects and methods so I was very glad to see this new product available from one of the known experts on Poser Python, Phil Cooke (known as PhilC on Renderosity).
The "book" consists of:

• A 388 page PDF manual


• Over 100 python scripts


• Graphics files for use in the examples


• XML files for use in the interface examples


• 3d models for use in the examples

The book cleverly hooks the examples and scripts into the menus of Poser and in the manual it explains how this was done.

I found the PDF manual to be a little variable. The getting started section is clear and gently drops you into the Poser python world. The intro to python gives a good descriptions of the different types of control statements such as for, if, while etc however the description about boolean operators is overly complicated and confusing. However someone with basic programming knowledge in another language such as VB or Javascript should be able to easily understand the python way.

The bulk of the manual (184 pages) is about creating graphical user interfaces for your scripts, Phil looks at three different techniques and mentions some of their advantages and disadvantages from simple input boxes to complex interactive forms. This section is full of detail with screenshots and clear explanations. If you wish to create UI components for your script then you should buy this book for this section alone.

The next section of the manual provided a mirror of the efrontier manual. Phil covers some topics here in good detail with screenshots and examples and there others are more spartan. I would have liked to have seen this section restructured by topic, e.g. hair, geometry, posing etc.

The manual finishes with an explanation of the utility scripts provided. The provided scripts and examples are easy to read and clearly documented. The example scripts are repeated in the manual with additional explanation.

Although it is possible to navigate the book via the bookmarks and searching, I would have liked to have seen a table of contents and perhaps a small index. The structure of the document feels disjointed as it it's been assembled from others rather than planned properly. An annoying characteristic is having a heading on the bottom of one page followed by the text that it relates to on the next, I also spotted at least one spelling mistake.

The manual specifically mentions that it is for Poser 7 but lots of it also applies to Poser 6. Phil has explained some of the differences for Mac and PC users and where Poser Python features are limited.

Despite it's annoyances and limitations this should prove to be a handy reference guide and indispensable if I need to make any UIs for Poser. I think given that it's a first version the price is a little high but I benefited from the US/UK exchange rate so think I did ok.

See these store pages for details and sample pages:

• Content Paradise


• PhilC Store

Carrara 6

Daz is previewing some of the new features of Carrara 6 on their forum and on youtube.
So far they have announced:

• Ocean Primitive: Like the land that was added in an earlier version but this allows you to make different seas, lakes etc. Shark demo video.


• Non Linear Animation: It allows users to create clips of animation (or poses) that can be reused and combined on multiple tracks of animations.


• Hair: A couple of demo videos on Youtube and a screenshot on DigitalPainters.


• Symmetrical Modeling: edit both sides of a object at the same time.


• Displacement modeling
  


• Enhancements to the vertex modeller including a bridge tool.


• Improved speed for viewing and manipulating larger meshes.


• Interactive Edge extrusion


• Improved Content Browser including support for multiple runtimes for Poser content. N.B. Daz Studio Libraries are not currently supported.


• Import of DSStudio scenes and Poser content and Skeleton import from DSStudio without the need for the creating applications.


• Skinning and morphing targets improved and performance boosted and integrated with Carrara's animation timeline


• Support for conforming clothing but not Poser's dynamic cloth.


• The imported figures will be editable and have features that regular vertex object have such as creation of morph targets. Full body morphs will also be supported.


• Rigid Body Simulation with a new updated physics engine with simulation on demand not when the application feels like it.


• Ray tracing Improvements - Improved speed and quality of raytraced depth of field with blurry reflections or soft shadows.
  
  
  


• Carrara 6 will have a standard and a pro version.


• Improved OpenGL support/performance.


• Free upgrade for people who buy now.


• Enhanced lighting controls such as shadow bias (used to correct self shadowing on low resolution objects) and lighting effects (CrossScreen, Glow, Nebula, Pulsator, Stars, VarioCross) see screenshot below.
  


• More transparency options for shaders, In-Scattering; an effect by the light reflected by small particles inside a medium such as cloudy water or a smokey room and a direct Absorption control. See Shark video above for an example of In-Scattering.


• New scene wizards, the empty scene can now be created with different default scales which affects the default size of new objects.
  


• There is also a new landscape wizard with a wide range of options for land and sky.
  
http://www.digitalpainters.net/car/v4moutain2b.mov

• Landscapes can be edited to use Render Time Displacement which uses less memory and can generate more details
  


• An alternative rotation controller to help with, for example character animation


• Enhanced editing of multiple selection for example if many lights are selected then you can change their brightness simultaneously or many object can be hidden at once.


• Unicode Support: Support for unicode object names and choice of fonts in the UI.


• Given that Daz have Collada Import and Export support in Daz Studio there is some speculation that there might be import and export support for Carrara 6. The is already a Collada plugin for C5.

There have been some observations that some of the new functions look like the previous generation of add-ins from Digital Carvers Guild such as Ground Control and Project Gemini. There are rumours that Erik is updating his current plugins to be compatible.

Microsoft's X format, import/export will be supported in a limited way in the release.

A flyer for C6 has been seen at Siggraph 2007.


Daz3D have announced that "Carrara 6 is scheduled to be released for sale on the DAZ 3D website in August 2007 with a special introductory discount being offered to DAZ 3D customers. The standard edition of Carrara 6 will have a MSRP of $249, and Carrara 6 Pro will have a MSRP of $549."

Daz3D's own Carrara 6 summary thread (needs registration)

For reference: Carrara 5 full feature list
Carrara 5 Pro vs Standard

Poser Pro

E-Frontier have announced their latest creation Poser Pro. It's a kind of a Poser 7.5 with few existing components bundled togther with 64bit rendering and QUIDAM for Poser. E-Frontier are aiming this release at top end animation professionals. Poser Pro has support for 3D Studio Max, Maya, Lightwave and Cinema 4D along with 3D export to Photoshop CS3 . For more details visit the website:

http://www.e-frontier.com/go/poserpro
http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/2309/1/270/

Take a step to the left

In the latest animation sequence of the Flea Circus Film, the Ring Master turns to the left and takes a step closer to the table to peer over the ring.

This proved to be a rather tricky maneuver in Poser. Because the leg moves and pauses I knew that it was likely to be affected by the issue with splines that I had back in February. However the key issue was that to rotate a figure in poser, you rotate their hip and the rest of the body follows. When turning people rotate around the foot that is on the ground not around the hip. As per usual I sought help from Renderosity and as per usual LittleDragon and PhilC came to my help with some suggestions and ideas. One of these was to parent the actor to an object that was at the point of rotation and rotate that. One of the issues with this is that an object can't change parents mid animation. Also the IK functionality does not help here with the feet sheering off when rotated.

However these technique seemed a little too manual for my liking and I wondered if it could be done with Poser's Python scripting language. In a moment of clarity, I thought back to my A-Level Maths days and remembered something like the following:

"that a rotation, about any point, is equivalent to a rotation (by the same angle) about the origin combined with a linear translation"

The Poser Python documentation that comes with Poser6 is not very user friendly, I was hoping for a graphical object model but the document is just a straight list of values, objects and methods in PDF form. There's also no examples with it (although there are some on the web). So the net effect is that I've not had a chance to get coding. I'm not sure if the Poser7 manual is any better and there does not appear to be any books for sale on this topic although there are plenty on Python and Poser separately.

However in the process of investigating Poser Python I stumbled across PoserSpeak a Windows based product that uses SAPI to add voices to your poser characters.

Breaking splines not strangulating Ring Masters

I completed the run in and bow video sequence this weekend which moves the flea film project a little closer to it's objective. The sequence starts with an announcement, the character runs in from the left of the screen and then bows to the audience. In the process I learnt a little about tweening with spline curves.

Basically my character was running in, thanks to Poser's walk designer and stopping and bending down. However when I added the moves to make him go back up, all sorts of strange things started happening. The poor little guy started strangling himself, his legs wrapped around themselves and his thumbs tied themselves in knots.

Thanks to an answer from PhilC on Renderosity, I discovered that the problem was my use of spline for the tweening which are the default and most natural looking tweeners available in Poser.

To see what's going on and why a future point might affect a historic point, I put together a simple experiment in excel. You can see in the left graph that the trendline (3rd order polynomial) is a simple straight line. However when I add new points to the right it causes the curve on the left to overshoot. The problem is that the curve fitting algorithm does not understand what I am attempting to achieve and in fact, I could not find any algorithm in excel that would sort this issue.

Luckily Poser does have an answer to this which is to "break spline". Rather than having the whole animation as only long spline curve you break it up into a series of shorter curves which are easier to manage and importantly don't interact with each other in this way. So in my example from excel I would need to break the spline at 4 and 6 and then add a couple of new key frames to smooth the curve between the two points.

So you need to ensure is if you have any animated poses that you start and finish them with a key frame with a break in the spline so that they don't interact with others. Once you've done this you can simply apply the pose from the library and it will blend seamlessly into the rest of the sequence.

You can find Phil's tutorial on this and other poser tips at his website.

http://www.philc.net/tutorialsIndex.htm

Poser 7 Release Date

Following a series of emails explaining the new features of Poser 7, E-frontier have announced the release date and not surprisingly their servers are swamped with traffic.

"The official release date for Poser 7 English will be Wednesday, December 20, 2006! Electronic versions will be available for immediate delivery, and physical versions will ship as soon as they become available."

It's also your last chance to get a bundle of extra content for free. The offer for the Poser 7 Special Edition retires on December 19, 2006

"Poser 7 Special Edition includes the High Stakes Content Pack (additional value of $79.99). Designed around a “secret agent” theme, the High Stakes Content Pack includes high fashion formal outfits for the new male and female figures shipping in Poser 7, a complete casino scene with props and a sports car. You will also receive a FREE 6 month Passport membership to Content Paradise (valued at $49.99), and a $10 coupon good for any e frontier content from Content Paradise!"