Emulating 2D hand-drawn, via 3D in Poser 11. ‘By Moebius’, or as close as you’re going to get to that style without actual hand-drawing. All layers are real-time or near real-time renders.
Author Archives: jonahjameson
Tutorial: a Poser script to find your lost prop
You have a complex scene in Poser. You load in a new prop or figure and… the new prop or figure is nowhere to be seen! You then have to tear your scene and carefully composed camera framing apart, to find the new item.
Is this is a problem you have, as a new Poser 11 user? Do you wish there was something like Poser’s native “Drop to floor” command, but named something like… “Centre selected item in camera”?
There is a way to do it, and it’s actually better than the native “Center item in camera”. It’s Ockham’s Python Scripts: SnapTo script. Only works on Windows. If you’re on Windows, here’s how to install and use it.
Update: There is now also a working Mac-friendly equivalent for it.
1) Download and un-zip. In Poser 11 you place the script in: C:\Program Files\Smith Micro\Poser11\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu to have it show up in Poser 11’s Scripts menu. It’s really really important to get right down to that last ..\ScriptsMenu folder and not stop at ..\poserScripts and think you’re there!
Then rename the script so that the filename has basic instructions. For instance…
SnapTo.py
becomes
SnapTo-SelectItem-StartScript-SelectDesination.py
The name of the script then serves as a quickstart reminder on how to operate it when you’re in the midst of creating a scene.
2) OK, so you built your complex scene. Load your character into it. Here we have Nursoda’s “Fon” character loaded into a scene via drag-and-drop from the PzDB library software, and… he’s nowhere to be found. He’s gone, lost somewhere in a vast desert. Could be anywhere.
So now we need to use the script we just installed. Find it at the top menu, under Scripts.
3) The name of the re-named script reminds you to:
i) have the item selected that you want to move before you start the script;
tip: ensure the item did not auto-conform to something when you dragged-and-dropped it. If it did then un-conform it — and also make sure you select with the main ‘Body’ element;
iii) you then start the SnapTo script;
iv) then you wait for the script to finish loading (there’s a progress bar);
v) after a few seconds the progress bar should read “Waiting to select destination”. Then you simply click-select the item in your scene that you want the lost prop or character to move to.;
vi) the script then moves the lost object.
Here I selected the observation deck of the steampunk telescope as the move destination. The script won’t also scale and rotate the moved item to match the destination, as I’ve done here with Fon to make a prettier basic picture. But the script moves things quickly and it saves a lot of trouble.
The only problem you may have is with a pre-dressed character loader-preset, as he may leave his clothes behind. You’ll need to re-dress.
Hopefully Poser 12 will integrate this operation as a native button, but until then Ockham’s vital script does the job fine in Poser 11. He also has a variant script, to “move the currently selected camera to the clicked location”, useful for working with very large or complex scenes, which can be used on a Mac. But note that the main SnapTo use Tkinter as part of the scripts, which means Mac users cannot run it — take it up with Apple and their fickle support-policies dept., not the makers of Poser.
Three webinars for September
A couple of webinars coming up.
1. Reallusion have a free “Importing & Animating DAZ Genesis 8 Characters in iClone” webinar on 11th September 2019. Update: YouTube link.
2. Carrara and Vue webinars from DAL, on 21st and 28th September 2019.
G’MIC for Photoshop: underway soon
Excellent news from Silvio Grosso, who linked to a job advert in July (now sadly expired)…
the French G’MIC team has hired a developer who will make G’MIC with Photoshop as a .8bf filter. Starting work 1st October 2019 and with the post sponsored for a year.
G’MIC is the excellent filter set in GIMP, and (as a Krita-specific fork) in Krita.
Update, December 2020: Now mature as gmic-8bf.
New content for Poser and DAZ: the July/August 2019 survey
Right then… it’s getting toward the end of the month. Which means it’s time for my survey of the content releases for Poser, DAZ and Vue. I skipped a round-up post in July, so this is now my pick of the content released during the last eight weeks or so.
Incidentally, I see that selling 3D-model ‘fan art’ is getting out-of-control at the marketplaces at ArtStation, Sketchfab and CGTrader. As such you’re advised to exercise more caution than usual, if you’re buying for commercial-use from such sites. Sometimes it’s obvious (Batman, Spider-man, Tom & Jerry) but other times not, especially if you’re unfamiliar with what’s in videogames these days.
Science fiction:
Mono Track for Poser, with V4 rider poses. Hopefully we’ll soon see some futuristic sci-fi texture makeovers for this.
The new SMC Gear: Helmet might suit a rider of the Mono Track.
A free Plasma Pistol Prop for Poser. Old, but nice to have. It toons up nicely to Poser line-art.
PW Customizable Hot Rod V12 is a nice bit of retro-sci, being the sort of classy future-vehicle you might have seen on the cover of magazines like Astounding or Modern Mechanix in the 1930s.
Level 21, a usefully generic “under the secret installation” setting, for your earth-bound sci-fi and techno-thrillers.
Steampunk:
A detailed SteamPunk Computer in .OBJ format.
Steampunk Wings for G3 and G8 and Expansion Pack.
Town Car 1912 for Poser.
A free Steampunk Lampe 2 in Collada .DAE format, which I found doesn’t play nicely with Poser 11. You may have to push this through 3DXchange and smooth it, then save it to a viable .OBJ format.
Fantasy:
dForce Thicket for Genesis 8 Male, a fantasy plant-man with dForce growth.
ROG Medieval Fantasy Bedroom, with quality props and lots of potential camera positions.
Harem of the Serpent King, a free stage set for DAZ. I assume this is not fan-art of some old 1980s Conan movie set, though note that many of the maker’s other freebies are fan-art.
Historical:
dForce Neolithic Outfits for Genesis 8 Male, complete with a set of props.
The new Top Knot Hair and Beard for Genesis 3 and 8 could probably also work with the neolithic clothes seen above.
Biblical era Assyrian Warrior Outfit for Genesis 8 Male.
Milk Van is another quality addition to Dryjack’s large set of classic British 1950s railway stock.
British Farm Pickup. A classic old Land Rover from the 1950s and 60s. Just the thing to get stuck on the level-crossing in your Dryjack railway track!
A free Canadian Tractor which looks fairly generic and, though in .3DS, may especially interest Vue users looking for old-time farm items.
Carmen Miranda’s 1920’s Tutti Frutti Hat for G8F.
Feathered for G8F/V8, which also evokes the 1920s/30s showgirl era.
Toon:
Snap Dragon for DAZ Studio. Fairly lightweight, so you can have a field of them. Also good texture makeovers and an “in a pot” pet version. Excellent work at a nice price.
Snap Dragon could be paired with the new Lightweight Tropical Environment.
Noname Doll by Glidman, a free weightmapped Poser 10 or 11 manga character. Also an Elbow Bend Fix for her.
Characters and hair:
The new flagship Poser character and G8F equivalent La Femme for Poser is now at version 1.1, and is currently 50% off. There’s also a new Merissa LaFemme young girl makeover.
SP Hair 006 for Genesis 3 and 8 Female. Usefully short and generic, suitable for an adventurer or archaeologist.
Morphing Turban and Beard for Genesis 8 Male.
Storybook:
The Wizard’s Wagon for Poser, now updated for DAZ Studio.
Mediterranean Alley, complete with hanging clothes. The clothes are too modern for most storybook use, but with a bit of work you could probably replace them with vintage items.
dForce Servant Dress for Genesis 8 Female.
Dia For Genesis 3 Female for DAZ Studio.
BBarbs continues her series of believable everyday Genesis 8 Young Child Poses, including several new pet-interaction poses suitable for storybook use.
Animals:
Daz House Cat with dForce Hair. The fur is not ideal and not at all convincing on the ears, but presumably it could be toned down here and there.
House Cattitude I and II. 40 poses for the Daz House Cat, and they look excellent.
Gorilla for Genesis 8 Male with dForce hair. The hair looks much more natural on the Gorilla than on the house cat.
New LAMH Presets for the HiveWire Cougar.
14 extinct animals, including five prehistoric fish. Likely to especially interest Vue users who do underwater/prehistoric scenes.
Landscapes and settings:
A new epic fantasy-type Green Oasis for Vue.
Lightweight Tropical Environment for DAZ Studio. Lush, but apparently not too taxing on your PC.
Shipwreck Survivors Camp. A huge cargo ship has landed in the desert, and the survivors have built a village of the spilled shipping containers. Yes, it’s a bit strange… but I can see a graphic novel in the setting (if it’s original and is not fan-art from some TV series).
Buoys for DAZ Studio. Vue seascape and aircraft artists will also want these.
Wooden Walkway set by 1971s. A lagoon walkway complex that matches with 1971s many fine buildings.
I see there’s also a new iRay add-on for the Danaides gothic dungeon.
Utilities:
The useful Look At Me is now Look At Me II. II adds chest and abdomen auto-turning. Expensive, but vital for those who do lots of multi-figure scenes where character are interacting.
Character Converter from Genesis 3 Female to Genesis 8 Female. I’ve no idea how well it works or how fiddly it is, but it seems rather useful if it can also handle sci-fi alien type characters.
Depth Shaders for DAZ Studio. Apparently a set of shaders that only affect “topcoat and backscatter surface channels”, while leaving the base textures intact. Thus giving your scene a depth-haze without increasing render time.
Tutorials:
Dazzling Renders in DAZ Studio, with Digital Art Live and Herschel Hoffmeyer.
That’s it for July/August 2019. More picks next month!
Poser 11.2 – dated and more details
More news on the forthcoming Poser 11.2 ‘bridge’ update, found at the end of an interview on Renderosity…
Starting Sept. 16 [2019], if you do not update, your Poser may not work because the licensing system will not be able to complete the over-the-Internet check needed to confirm your license key. That means you must update.
Poser 11.2 news
Official Poser news on the latest Poser developments and near-future.
* Poser 11.2 will be a ‘bridge release’ to swop over people’s licenses to Renderosity. No new features with 11.2, but there will be some under-the-hood changes.
That makes sense. One clean sweep to swop people over.
* Once that’s done, onward to a “64-bit update for Windows” and updates that “stay current with both Windows and Mac [OS] builds”.
Nice for the Mac people.
* New “integrated marketplace search” inside Poser.
I’m not keen on the “integrated marketplace search” but as long as it’s just a discreet search-box and doesn’t flash or chirp or have pop-ups every hour with a day-glo yellow strip, then I can ignore it.
* Now that La Femme is the G8F-equivalent flagship figure for Poser, she needs a suitable mate. “Le Homme” is in development.
Presumably he might ship with Poser 12 only, and thus be a selling-point for Poser 12 buyers? Just my guess.
* Selective installers.
So it sounds like you can selectively install only what you want from the free content bundle, rather than clutter your hard-drive with 5Gb of unused stuff. That makes sense if all you want is Robo-Kitty, some legacy characters and a few of the animals.
Nothing about a future subscription model. I do hope they don’t go with subscriptions.
Moebius in Poser 11 – more refined
This still needs a lot of adjustment for the Moebius-style dash-shading to ‘read’ well when in a comics panel on a 10″ Kindle screen. The same goes for the line width(s). Reducing the image by 50% is a good test, and if the dash-hatching then gets smushed down into a grey haze, then it’s failed the test.
But when seen at this size it’s an improvement on the crude “proof of concept” demo posted here a few days ago.
Moebius in Poser 11 – proof of concept
This still needs to be perfected, but is a bit of a breakthrough in terms of doing Moebius-style dash stippling that follows contours, while indicating 3D volume and shadows.
This is Nursoda’s ‘Loik’ 3D character. Ink outlines from Poser 11’s real-time toon mode (2 seconds render time at 1800px). Moebius-style dash shading via my breakthrough in making and refining a custom Poser Sketch Designer preset (5 seconds render time at 1800px). The two renders then easily combined in Photoshop.
The 3D comic Striker bows out
The Dream is Over: 34 years in the making, Striker finally bows out. Striker was a 3D football (soccer) comic, which I assume was made with Poser. It appeared for decades in the biggest of the British ‘tabloid’ newspapers. All mainstream newspapers are cutting back these days, and the expensive trimmings such as daily comic-strips are often the first to go.
But there’s good news too. The same writer’s comic strip Psycops appeared in the same newspaper and is now to be collected in full. Not 3D, despite the partly 3D front cover, but nice artwork after some early wobbles with other artists.
It’s a sci-fi detective-adventure serial which ran in The Sun from July 1994 to the start of 1999. A female private detective and her partner Gabriel, who is actually a telepathic alien in disguise, battle various ingenious enemies in thriller-style situations.
The adventures are being reprinted in their entirety for the very first time in a 304-page book available as a softcover version. … Psycops will be available to buy exclusively from our online shop from early July … with shipping mid August 2019.
The SFX magazine review of the collected Psycops gave the new book a healthy four stars. “The enthralling pace never slackens … stories actually now seem quite prophetic … elegant lineart” in a Modesty Blaise style.
An interesting British sci-fi curiosity, which collectors will probably want as it may not be available forever.
CompoScene 2.0.x
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Posted in Comics, Companion software, SketchUp, Special Offers and Discounts
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CompoScene is a render plugin, to efficiently export a bundle of multipass renders from SketchUp to Photoshop. Meant for comics makers. Originally $64, now just $16.50. Last updated December 2018.
Release: HitFilm 13.0
Shipping now is HitFilm 13.0, the budget $299 video editing, compositing and effects software. It’s basically a cut-down After Effects for VFX-heavy film makers on a tight budget. Lots of camera matching upgrades, plus new colour-grading tools, and an interesting “Remove Stock Background – for compositing stock video footage without manual keying”.
DAZ Studio 4.12 beta supports RTX
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Posted in 3D Renders, DAZ Studio, Real-time animation, Spotted in the News
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This week everybody seems to be announcing their software will support real-time ray-tracing for those with “Nvidia’s new RTX GPUs”, which at the consumer level means the GeForce RTX gaming graphics cards. Including DAZ Studio 4.12 (already enabled), Blender, and KeyShot (in the forthcoming version 9 in Autumn/Fall 2019).
In DAZ Studio 4.12, with “RTX On” according to DAZ you get…
RTX-accelerated ray tracing for both the interactive viewport and final renders … [with a claimed] 140 percent more performance in final frame rendering compared to previous generation GPUs, and an incredible 10.5x faster than CPU-only rendering.
Looks nice, but Amazon tells me that even a low-end budget gaming “GeForce RTX” is likely to cost me around £350, and that’s without a Power Supply Unit (PSU) upgrade to run it. An RTX version that’s going to last a few years starts at £700. Still, for a small commercial studio, that sort of amount could be written off against tax. Although I think I’d really need a new PC to go down that route. And that’s still some years away.
Blender 2.8 final
Blender 2.8 final (really final) is out. I gave it one last chance. But I got the same instant display-driver crash on loading as I had with the late beta(s), and then just hanging for 30 minutes, while loading no interface at. It won’t even show the splash screen.
Update: three months later I found it was actually a driver issue. A long and laborious driver uninstall and update of the drivers took me from OpenGL 4.2 to 4.5… and Blender now launches at least.
Neobarok
Neobarok. The alpha for 2.0 was previewed a year ago. 2.0 is now being trailed on the site.
Totally free open source software, from one developer. Intuitive modelling and sculpting, with easy boolean and also paint.
It has good video reviews, and it looks quite promising for 2.0. There’s .OBJ export, but so far as I can tell there’s no in-software rendering of what you see to a big 3000px .PNG file. The best you can get there is switch to hi-res, go fullscreen, and take a PrintScreen screenshot.
There are some introductory tutorials and the maker has a DeviantArt gallery.
The most vital first-step in using it is quite tricky, until you get the hang of it. To rotate:
1. First press down and HOLD the RIGHT mouse button.
2. Then do the same with LEFT mouse button, so that both buttons are held down.
3. Then move the mouse to rotate the view.
Do not just press both buttons simultaneously, as that won’t work.
It’s not insanely complicated like some software, although the basic camera and move controls are not initially very intuitive or standard. Let’s hope 2.0 has a camera widget like Poser.