Ironmania MarkIII/IV WIP

Mircea · Forum Member Joined: Jun 02, 2002 Posts: 37

Ah! Well then I guess I will be anxiously waiting the next update while I stretch armstrong the current one.
_________________
Regere Sanguine Regere In Veritatem Est.

Aremis · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:32 am Post subject:

First off, thanks for the link. Im about to start rendering with it and will post my images when ready.

My first comment right off the bat - small one, but can become quite important:

Create your own individual folder within the GEOMETRIES library.
Ex: Geometries:Ratteler:Amazing Armor:AmazingArmor.obj

This keeps the files in a clean state, and allows for easy addition of other characters/items you make in the future, rather than having lose floating OBJ files in the directory itself. Also allows a person to know who made it, if they ever have problems and can't remember.

Now - Onto rendering =)

Edit: Same goes for the character library, the pose library, and 100% for the texture library. Im personally gonna remap it from my end, since I have libraries dating back to poser 2 original launch, and keep everything clean in my directories.
_________________
=============================
New World Media/Muskateer Graphics
~Live the dream, experience the nightmare
=============================

Aremis · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:47 am Post subject:

Next comment - About the included Pose Files.
I have three listed.
Centurion, Stand, and R&G
R&G does nothing. No thumbnail, and doesnt affect anything visually that I can see.

Second, The pose files should not contain morph modifications in them. Choosing either Centurion or Stand, replaces the defaults of the loaded character with different settings for the morphs. All pose files for actual poses should contain no morph data. Any pose files that are to be used as MOR files, should be labeled as such, and no affect anything other than the morphs (ie. does not alter the pose)

I take beta testing seriously =).
But so far looks tremendous.
_________________
=============================
New World Media/Muskateer Graphics
~Live the dream, experience the nightmare
=============================

Aremis · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:46 am Post subject: Re: Ironmania MarkIII/IV WIP

Ratteler - Don't take any of my critiques too harshly. When I do beta testing on anyones files (I do daily testing for many of the RDNA files as well) I truly put it through the grinder, so that the designer can get the best feedback possible. It is in no way a criticism against the figure in any way. I love what you have made so far =).

=========================================

OK - Now I have had some time to play a little, here are some quick observations.

GENERAL COMMENT ON MORPHS
First, I found that having morphs all over the place made it a long process to work with. My recommendation would be to make the morphs, as with many characters, available right in the root of the figure, at the body level.
But the amount of morphs, and quality of them are beautiful. Great job.

CHEST SENSOR MORPH
The only major problem I found with any of the morphs was the chest sensor one named "WIDE".
By using this morph, on any of the given shapes (ie. Pentagon, Square and Star, as well as the default) caused the sensor to distort greatly and destroys the "light" portion of the sensor.

But apart from that damaged morph, and the need to look through every body part to ensure you have located all morphs, I found them to be well done, high quality, and easy to work with.

BIGGEST FLAW/PROBLEM WITH THE FIGURE IN GENERAL
Now, the biggest problem I found overall with the figure are the shoulder cuffs. Although the morphs themselves are fantastic, and give you lots of room to play and get the look you want, the cuffs do not move well with the rest of the figure when posing it. If these are to remain as part of the physical figure, rather than as props, they should bend and move with the shoulder. Below are various basic poses I did, that show how rough the cuffs move with the shoulders. This leads to more individual body part posing than needed. No big deal for advanced users, but many are new users who just want to load a pose and hit render.

MESH PROBLEM AT HIP
And lastly (For now BWAHAHAHAHAHA...kidding lol), is a small problem I found with the hip portion of the mesh.
I found in some poses, both simple and extreme, the mesh distorts quite a bit at the leg/hip seam, as shown in the last image. This can cause some headaches for those who have limited abilities with post-work to remove the flaw.

Overall, I love the figure. Its a very clean built figure, easy to pose, and doesn't require a terabyte of ram to load and render it high quality. The included morphs are wonderfully done, and allow for lots of room for growth by the artist, to make him look the way they choose.
I love that he works cleanly with M3 poses, as well as poses well manually on his own (many figures are so high quality yet take forever to pose or manipulate).

Apart from the fact that I would have loved to have seen this as a conforming figure set for the Millennium characters (Since M3 is free to all if Im not mistaken, so anyone could use it), and the few problems found with the shoulder cuffs and chest sensor, and the little overlap in the mesh at the hip, I honestly think this is one of the best pieces I have seen come out of the free community in a very long time.

Overall so far - I give this bad boy an 8/10.

I still haven't looked over the texture itself, or the mapping, which I will do after I have rendered some images with him.

Good job brother. Keep going. Beautiful work.
_________________
=============================
New World Media/Muskateer Graphics
~Live the dream, experience the nightmare
=============================

Mircea · Forum Member Joined: Jun 02, 2002 Posts: 37

Thanks Aremis, theses are also good tips on doing a better job at beta testing. This was only my second time beta testing and I really like doing it.
_________________
Regere Sanguine Regere In Veritatem Est.

Christian22179 · Forum Member Joined: May 03, 2006 Posts: 44

Ok, hand problem.

Don't know how I can post images here so I'll just give a step by step instruction on how I get this hand blade problem.

1. I load Ratteler's Amazing Armor.

2. I load M3 Fighting 01 Pose. Boom, hand blade problem.

3. I load a different pose, such as Sword Ready 02 and the same problem.

That's all the steps I took. Don't know why this happening, but it is.

Aremis · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 12:38 pm Post subject:

Christian - Feel free to email me the image if you want and I can post it here for you for everyone to see. I myself have not seen the problem first hand, but noticed some blade like protrusions in some of the posted renders in the main gallery.

Mircea youre doing the right thing by starting with a talented designer like Ratteler, on a free item. It's the best way to learn the skills for beta testing. I always say, screen shot everything. And don't just do a standard render. First find a severe pose that moves all body parts, then render individual parts of the body up close, like hands, feet, hip by themselves, so you can really see what the mesh can or cannot do.
And do it slowly step by step. And never worry about hurting a designers feelings if you find something wrong. If you're polite about it, and he/she can take criticism on their work, its always best, that way the designer gets the best quality product going, and fewer chances of complaints afterwards (I use to sell lots of stuff, and when I started, did very little open testing, and always ended up with headaches lol).

One more item to add to the figure.
The little knobs on either side of the sensor.
I thought they were built that way until I did a full render. They only show through the chest half way. i had to modify the Z axis to have them show properly.
just more info =)
_________________
=============================
New World Media/Muskateer Graphics
~Live the dream, experience the nightmare
=============================

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 561 Location: NYC

Thanks for the feedback Aremis. GREAT stuff.

Everyone else... do what Aremis is doing.

If you don't mind... adding a few comments about your system would be helpful too.

Mac ??? (Kind, processor, etc.)
OS: 10.4, 10.5
RAM

R&G is MAT pose... Soon there will be others.
Set the entire figure to a single material color... then click on the R&G pose and it should pop the figure back to Red and Gold.

Centurion is basically a "Demo" pose to show off those morphs, and Stand is a pose with no morphs in it. I doubt any of those will make the final product.

I hear what you're saying about the folders, but I don't like that method. The reason is the 255 character limit that file paths have in Windows. (There are some Mac files systems still in use with 128 Character limit.)

I've had several products stop functioning correctly because the file path went "too deep".

With Poser 5 and Daz Studio, you can now add a runtime instead of copying the files into one giant runtime, and that's how I recommend adding Amazing Armor to your setup.

In fact... that's how I put ANY product in Poser. I've installed almost every DAZ product into it's own unique Runtime, and add them as needed.

Of course... I'm pushing close to a 1000 unique runtimes. :-p

Still, it's the "correct" way to add products to your working library as of P5 and up, and it works with D|S.

The CollarCuff issue is one I'm aware of, but I doubt I can do anything to fix automagically.

There is simple no pose information for those body parts in any M3, or other pose.

In order to keep the cuffs from bending and warping with the Shldr I essentially attached them as a second set of arms. They are like props, but unlike props they are welded to the chest to avoid seams.

I considered using JCM to make the CollarCuffs get the same values as the shldrs... but this make them almost impossible to position separately. Whenever you repose them to fix an issue, the JCM set them back to the shldr pose even if it doesn't work.

It's a little like adding a tail to M3. The tail will always need to be posed manually after the rest of the figure.

Same with some of the other unique parts like the chest sensor and bolts. There is just no way I know of to make them pose automatically with the rest of the figure, and NOT warp out of shape.

I had hoped that being able to control all those pieces manually would make up for it.

As far as being an M3 Conforming figure... I'm a little surprised it doesn't work. I'll have figure out why. I just tried it for the first time, and it seems as though the it works up to the chest, and then pulls other parts out of alignment from there on.

One reason I DIDN'T want him to be a conforming figure is that I think the only thing more absurd than putting a 12000+ polygon figure over 72,000 polygon one... that is never seen, is putting a 72,000 polygon figure over one that is never seen.

Aremis · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:11 pm Post subject:

Your comment about the cuffs makes 100% perfect sense to me. Never even considered it that way, with your explanation regarding a tail as an example. And for me, its such a small thing its no bother. But like I said, I cover all bases =).

And yeah, same with the conforming figure. I guess I looked at it more as
-Glove set
-Shoulder Set
-Chest Armor set
-Hip Armor
-Mask
- Leg Armor
-Boots

all as conforming pieces over mike.
But regardless, it still works amazingly well. And worst comes to worst, I can always add a M3 head if I want a maskless version anyhow =).

My system Stats for testing are

System 1 (Quick Renders):
iMac 24" 2.4Ghz
2Gb Memory
ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro/246MB
OS 10.4.11

System 2 (Full render work)
Macintosh Mac Pro
Dual 3.0Ghz 8-Core
8Gig Ram
NIVIDIA Quadro FX 5600 1.5gb
OS 10.4.11

Both systems running Poser 7
_________________
=============================
New World Media/Muskateer Graphics
~Live the dream, experience the nightmare
=============================

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 561 Location: NYC

Aremis · Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject:

lol!
=)
Yeah, the film and photography work pays well enough to buy the toys I need.
My main machine is actually one of two identical I use for film editing, except the second one only has 4gig of Ram.
But the money pays me well enough to enjoy the fruitsand use it towards my fun work, like Poser - Just wish I had your skills for modeling lol. I spent three months trying to make Iron Man's mask from the movie. I got as far as the lower portion of his mouth, and gave up in frustration lol.
_________________
=============================
New World Media/Muskateer Graphics
~Live the dream, experience the nightmare
=============================

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 561 Location: NYC

Mircea · Forum Member Joined: Jun 02, 2002 Posts: 37

Then I guess that makes you the perfect man for the job huh?

Yeah Yeah I know "Glass people shouldn't be throwing rock houses" ....erm Nevermind just pretend I didnt say that. Move along nothing to see here.

_________________
Regere Sanguine Regere In Veritatem Est.

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 561 Location: NYC

Mircea · Forum Member Joined: Jun 02, 2002 Posts: 37

Insanity is the prerequisite for being a poser addict.
_________________
Regere Sanguine Regere In Veritatem Est.