Poser Pro 2014 60 Percent Off

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For a limited time Smith Micro is offering Poser Pro 2014 for $199, which is about 60% off the regular price. Upgrades from previous versions of Poser are also on discount, ranging from $140 for older versions down to $100 for Poser Pro, Pro 2010, and Pro 2012.

What’s So Good About Poser?

Considering the amount of content and features Poser Pro 2014 packs, this is a pretty darn good deal. For DAZ Studio users looking for something a little more robust, while still very cost-effective, Poser might just be the way to go. I personally use both. I love the additional features of Poser, especially the easy to use “indirect lighting”, physics and animation tools. I prefer DAZ Studio for its user interface, integrated 3Delight render engine, and native Genesis support.

Poser Pro 2014 features include:

  • Full rigging and weight mapping
  • Physics simulation – Soft and hard body dynamics (cloth, hair, jiggly fleshy bits etc)
  • Morph tools
  • Hair creation tools
  • Fitting room (refit clothing designed from one model to another)
  • Advanced OpenGL preview – high quality shadows and materials
  • Node-based material editor
  • Indirect Lighting (Global illumination)
  • Image Based Lighting
  • True HDR support
  • Robust animation tools
  • Pixar subdivision surfaces (OpenSubdiv)

…and much more.

Reality 3

Also hard to pass up over at Smith Micro, is Pret-a-3D’s Reality 3 for Poser (currently $27.95). For those unfamiliar with the product, it is an scene translator and exporter for LuxRender, which is a physically based unbiased render engine. Essentially LuxRender is capable of producing physically accurate images as it closely simulates the behaviour of light and how it interacts with materials and objects.

Skilled use of the render engine can and does produce photorealistic images. The main drawback with LuxRender and unbiased rendering in general is that it is typically much slower than biased engines like Firefly (Poser) and 3Delight (DAZ Studio), though with the continued development of LuxCore, much faster GPU rendering methods are becoming more feasible.

A Note on Poser 3 for DAZ Studio

The good news for DAZ Studio users (that have been waiting, both patiently and otherwise) is that Reality 3 for DAZ Studio is in rapid development and will contain new features not yet in the Poser version. Paolo Ciccone, the developer, regularly posts updates on development progress at Pret-a-3D’s blog.

Victoria 6 Free For (Very) Limited Time

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Greetings fellow 3D enthusiasts! Some cool news out of the DAZ camp for you all today. In celebration of her first birthday this weekend (11:59 PM MST Sunday June 29th, 2014) you can pick up Victoria 6 for free. For those new to the latest generation of Genesis figures, you will have to download the Genesis 2 Female base figure (also free). The Genesis 2 base figures, female and male, are both available for download direct from your “Product Library” at DAZ 3D and via the DAZ Install Manager (DIM).

There are a lot of DAZ Studio and Poser users out there that have yet to dip their feet into the Genesis 2 pool, even as far as installing the base G2 figures, let alone grabbing either the latest Victoria and Michael incarnations. Can we hope to see a similar offer for Michael 6? Let’s hope. So, if you haven’t yet picked up the figure the time is now. Pass the word along.

The birthday giveaway announcement forum thread

DAZ Studio Alembic Exporter to LightWave – Problems and Solutions

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DAZ 3D's Genesis exported via Alembic and rendered in LightWave 11.6.1

Genesis basic male test render LightWave. Exported via Alembic.

The blogs been fairly quiet for a while now. I’ve been going through some large life changes. A new website project has also taken a lot of time lately, but let us not dwell on the quiet time. Just tonight I had a chance to play around with the new Alembic Exporter for DAZ Studio. One huge limitation of the exporter is that it only supports a single UV map. The solution to this is quite simple. Merge the UV maps! Of course the first thing I thought to do was take the convoluted path of exporting Genesis to LightWave as an .OBJ, merging the UV’s, exporting back to DAZ, re-rigging, animate and finally export again via Alembic. This struck me as somewhat terrible. So I Googled for something like “merge UVs DAZ Studio”. First thing I stumble upon reminds me about DS’s Texture Atlas – Facepalm!

DAZ Studio Texture Atlas export menu

Texture Atlas is simple and great for game developers, and those looking for a way around the Alembic exporter’s single UV map restriction.

Maybe I could forgive myself a little for the fact I’ve never actually used the plugin, but I was aware of it and what it did. Atlas is simple and quick to use. With that process complete I had a nice unified UV and series of texture maps (diffuse, specular, trans, bump, displacement). Next I load my laughable test animation and export via Alembic. Make sure you have “Preserve SubDivision Surfaces” turned off if you’re exporting to LightWave. LW doesn’t support this information from DS, not even if using Catmull-Clark (which technically it should). Unfortunately this isn’t the end of our troubles though.

First up, LW’s Alembic importer doesn’t preserve any material information, so those have to be rebuilt from scratch. This isn’t such a big issue if you only need a single material each for skin, nails, lips, and eye surfaces. The second snag is that the textures appear faceted when reapplied in LW. This isn’t down to Genesis’s geometry. Exporting without subdivision information applies geometry “freezing”, so you can still export a high poly figure (or apply subdivision in LW itself). In both cases the textures have the same faceting problem, regardless of how many levels of subdivision were applied. The lower the subdivision level when exported from DAZ Studio, the worse the faceting when reapplying the textures in LW. Whether this is an issue with LW’s inability to accept real subdivision information, or a problem with DS’s exporter is not clear. Atlas doesn’t seem to be part of the problem though. The merged textures and UVs appeared as expected in DS. Unfortunately as we can’t export Alembic back in to DS I wasn’t able to test the exporter itself.

While Alembic is still a work in progress, and both the DS exporter and LightWave’s importer both have issues, Alembic is still a very convenient format for transferring animation data. With widespread industry support Alembic seems destined to succeed, so we can all rest assured that someday it will all work beautifully. I hope that both DAZ 3D and LightWave’s developers continue to refine their implementations.

Caldera (2013) – Powerful Short Animation

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caldera-2It is amazing the things one stumbles upon while in the depths of a procrastination binge. Caldera is a visually stunning 3D animation created by Evan Viera, Chris Bishop, and a host of students and professionals that donated their time. The project was produced under the Bit Films program at Hampshire College, Amherst. While dark and dealing with tough subject matter, Caldera is beautifully realised, touching and thought provoking. There are also some serene moments that soften the impact, while making the experience all the more compelling.

The film was 4 years in the making and is inspired by Viera’s father’s experiences with schizoaffective disorder. It depicts a young woman who decides to go off her medication and flee a threatening and oppressive city. The film doesn’t attempt to push a particular perspective on us, but instead poses questions for the viewer to consider.

Caldera has been to many film festivals and picked up numerous awards. Bit Films is currently working on a number of projects including Tube, a 3D short animation that seems to be in the latter stages of production. Bit Films is currently taking on interns for Spring 2014.