Thoughts about Poser and Daz Studio

A recent topic over at the Daz3D forums sparked me to reminisce about my interactions with Poser and Daz Studio. Like almost all 3D artists in this arena, I started out with Poser and then shifted over to Daz Studio when Poser was floundering (and it looked like the product might die). But for me, the shift was gradual.

I didn't care at all for Daz Studio until version 4 came along. I remember looking at DS2 and asking people, "What's so great about it that I should invest the time to learn it?" And I just kept getting the same answer: "It's free!" I remember that I finally snapped and said, "Look, I'm an adult with a JOB. I can afford to buy Poser. What the heck is in DS that would make it worth my while?" Finally, one guy said, "Nothing. If you have Poser just stick with it. DS2 isn't a mature program."

 And that was true, until Daz Studio 4. That was when it finally had the tools and power to make it worthwhile. And that's when I jumped ship and went over to Daz Studio. Things I really liked:

•  The Download Manager. One click and everything comes down and goes where it's supposed to. 
• Smart wardrobes: Again, click on the figure and the library filters the view to show you stuff that works with that figure. 
• Easier figure manipulation. 
• Iray (Poser's Superfly is a poor, VERY distant runner up to Iray). 

But... As much as I liked DS and the pretty Iray pictures I could make, it wasn't fulfilling my desires to create line art out of 3D. Workarounds like Toon shaders and geoshells were (not to be rude): rubbish. Yes, with a LOT of work you could make something that worked. But the look wasn't all that good. The same is true for using Filter Forge and other image manipulation tricks. Yeah, you could get something that looked okay... but it really wasn't anything that knocked my socks off.

Even in the hands of an expert it usually looks like someone did some Filter magic on a standard render. And then in January 2016 I attended a Webinar hosted by professional comic artist Brian Haberlin and he showed a feature I had never seen before: "The Live Comic Book Preview" (he added the word "Live" to its name).

Brian showed the tricks to setting up lights and adjusting the geometric edge settings, and suddenly I was off and running because I had actually won a free copy of Poser 11 and had it installed on my computer. For about a year I tried to duplicate his workflow (even bought Blacksmith 7 so I could work on my texture maps the way he did in Z-Brush), but soon tired of copying him and developed my own style.

Now I finally have a style and workflow that I like. BUT... even though I'm happy with the art I create, I'm a bit frustrated by exactly one thing that is still missing from Poser: a modern flagship figure that content creators supported. Yeah, that's still a problem.

I see lots of great content out there, but mostly I pass on it because I can't use it in Poser. I know Renderosity has high hopes for La Femme, but I just don't see the market support for her, yet. The new products are tickling out, and frankly they're not that interesting.

Yeah, I know "slut wear" sells, but not to me. I need clothes, characters and POSES. So far, there just isn't enough support for her to make me consider using her for any project. Which is too bad: I think she has potential.

Frankly, unless Poser gets support for the Genesis figures, and soon, I don't see a bright future for the software. Especially since I've hear rumors that Daz Studio is working on creating its own Comic Book Preview.

Poser Class: Create a Signature Line Art Style with Poser

Hey there, art fiends!

On Sunday, Feb. 16 at about 1:30 pm CST, I will be teaching a class for Digital Art Live: How to Create a Signature Line Art Style with Poser.  Here is a video I made to promote the class:

The registration page can be found here:
https://digitalartlive.com/event/create-a-signature-line-art-style-with-poser/

Clip Studio Paint Tip: Frame Borders

So, I finally bit the bullet and moved on from Manga Studio 5ED to Clip Studio Paint Pro. The upgrade has not been without issues, but I need to master the latest version of the software, rather than clinging to the old version (especially since, as a registered owner of Manga Studio I was eligible for a free upgrade).

Needless to say, I'm having to hunt down tutorials on how to do things that are either new or that I haven't done in a long time. Here's an important video tip on working with panel borders:

How to divide panels equally can be found around 5:50.

Poser Tip: How to make a MAT file

I'm prepping some freebie files for the class I'm working on (more on that very soon!), so I thought I would share this link with you on how to make material files for Poser.

http://www.cocs.com/poser/quickmatposes.htm

Just in case anything happens to the link, here's a quick summary of what it says:

Even though it may seem like making MAT poses is old hat to many people, here is a tutorial on how to make MAT poses, quickly and easily from an existing cr2 (figure file). How do we do it? Every cr2 file contains material information in it. So, we're going to remove the non-material information, change the file from a cr2 to a pz2 and, then, presto!, it's a MAT pose.

As a side note: using this method will result in creating MAT poses that are "optimized": they may start at the Runtime folder (or at the specific texture folder) and include a ":" in the references, as in "Runtime:Textures:vicky:body.jpg".
This is the generally-accepted, correct method for referencing texture files, rather than the incorrect method of starting at c:\Program Files and using backslash character, "\", as in "c:\Program Files\ e-frontier\ Poser\ Runtime\ Textures\ Vicky\ body.jpg" (Or, even worse, using a reference to a folder on a user's own D or E drive, as in "e:\graphics\ temp\ texs for models\ del later\ body.jpg".)

A Matter of Style(s)

I am working on an exciting project (I'll announce it in a few days), and as part of the prep for that I was asked to create some marketing materials that show off some of the line art styles I use on a frequent basis.

This is what I came up with:

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

Any thoughts on whether this is a decent representation of my figure work?

Cabin Scene - Blue (Updated) Selected Poser Staff Pick of the Week (01-06-2020)

Wow. this is a great way to start of the decade. The very first illustration I posted online at Renderosity was selected as a Poser Staff Pick of the Week.

Well, technically this is the second illustration because it's an update of an earlier version; I changed the shading on the cart to lighten it up. In fact, truth be told, I was working on the illustration to take out the cart and replace it with a stump and an ax when I got the news, so I decided to stop the updates and just leave it as is.

Well, sorta. I did fix a problem with the shadows on the cart – they were going the wrong way in the previous version.

So, here it is folks, my last take on this illustration as i move on to other things (like attacking dragons!).

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

For anyone interested, the entire list of 8 images can be found here:
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2941597

Days Gone 22 - Cabin in the Woods (Blue)

One of the great things about being busy is that I've got a lot of great artwork to show for my past year. One of the not-so-great things is that I frequently neglect to post project updates.

So, yes, I've done a lot of work on Days Gone over the past year. Okay, not a lot, but some. And it's been pretty good. One thing that became apparent was that I needed to include more scenes with the dragon being wicked, so I started to create a scene showing the dragon attacking a village (or at least a farmhouse). And this is what I came up with – regarding the farmhouse in the woods, that is. As you can clearly see, the dragon is nowhere in sight.

At least not yet.

You see, as i created this scene, I kind liked how simple it was. No dragons, zombies or goblins. Just a cabin in the woods as a simple landscape. So, over the past two days, that's exactly what I created: this simple landscape in my signature blues and browns.

Fear not, fantasy fans, as I shall work on adding the dragon any day now.

© 2020 Mike Mitchell

Next Time: Another (long-overdue) update