Runtime DNA merges with DAZ 3D

[Rokket]

My first render scared me so bad I deleted it and threw away the external harddrive it was on!

 

[Lorraine]

mine wasn't quite that bad. Almost, but not quite

 

[Satira Capriccio]

I started in 2006 with DS ... I think it was a 2 version. When Poser 5 became available for a really inexpensive price, I picked it up and switched between the two for several months. I dropped DS when I realized that Poser lighting clicked for me, while I never have been able to understand DS lighting. Given my phobia with photography, it's amazing I can understand lighting at all :wink:

Everything I did in DS and all the Poser files were lost in the Great Hard Drive Crash of 2010. I only have finished pieces for 2006-2008 which I downloaded from a gallery on my website. The renders, files, and photoshop files were lost.

This is from 2006.

This is from 2007

I've always loved the UI in Poser. The very first thing I did was to figure out how to rearrange all the little windows. By the time I was done, I had a rather large document window instead of the itty bitty one that's shown in the Poser UI screenshots.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

This is part of a commission piece I did in 2008. The commission piece itself also had a V4 and two M3s in negotiations with the trolls. But, I always liked the trolls best.

Anyone else have early pieces they want to add to our RDNA wake?

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Satira, those are pretty neat for early renders! Better than anything I was able to do when I first started!

I love the trolls! They look cocky; like they're beefing themselves up before charging in and pillaging.

I've always loved the UI in Poser. The very first thing I did was to figure out how to rearrange all the little windows. By the time I was done, I had a rather large document window instead of the itty bitty one that's shown in the Poser UI screenshots

Poser 4's interface for me was very nice. It was clean, neat, and able to be reorganized to where I had a nice big document window in the center also. I had everything just the way I liked it.

With Poser 5, the clutter came in... and I HATED it. And the clutter has NEVER gone away since P5 hit the market, and I STILL hate it. I hate that UI so much that I don't even have words enough to accurately describe it. I only go into Poser these days when I have absolutely NO OTHER CHOICE. And believe me, if I had a Poser-native partner, I would NOT even be in there fighting with Nataani's mats. What took me about one day to sort out with Nataani's materials in DS, I have been at now for over three WEEKS in Poser and getting NOWHERE fast. I hate hate hate HATE the interface!!

I think it's a wonderful program. It's extremely powerful and capable of doing SO much more than many folks realize. But I just can NOT tolerate the UI at ALL anymore. That, combined with the insanely high price tag pretty much makes it a game-over move for me. I doubt I will ever upgrade from P10 at this point. The minute the program opens, I feel like I'm being smothered and squeezed into a tiny box that is too small for me. And there is NO amount of rearranging on the interface that cleans it up enough for my liking, either. I've moved everything to everywhere and the fact is that TOO many of the tools need to remain open at all times on the interface, as there is NO nice and neat way to tuck them off to the side. No matter what I do with it, I can't get a decent sized document window.

So, as much as I respect the program's capabilities - and as much as I am willing to fight with it in order to provide Poser support for the content I make - I absolutely, vehemently, despise the program's interface at this point. I seriously get to where I feel like I'm claustrophobic when I'm in there, and I can only take it for just so long before I have GOT to get back OUT again. LOL

It's a wonderful piece of software... but they really need to do something about the UI in order for me to feel comfy in it ever again. And the material room makes my brain explode. Things like "Blinn" don't tell me SQUAT! No amount of following tutorials seems to help, either. I think my brain just does not like the material room or the UI and that's simply the way it is. *chuckles*

Anyone else have early pieces they want to add to our RDNA wake?

Oh, heck, here's a few more early pieces of mine. Feel free to snicker and laugh.

1.) 2002 again, even without a signature! This was done in Poser 4. It was an old Aery Soul (they were called Awful Soul back then), Gothic Prison prop, and that's Victoria 2 with an old Kozaburo hair prop that I re-textured. Heck, I was re-texturing things even back then, once I figured out how to change maps!

And look! I even remembered to click the "render" button on this one!

2.) And this was also a Victoria 2 render... yup, that was my old Vicky 2 "Rune" skin texture, and again with my re-texturing on Kozaburo's hair props. I think this one was 2003 or 2004...

Bit of trivia; this specific render, as bad as it is!!... has been the single most stolen/re-sold-by-thieves image out of my entire flippin' gallery, and I still have NO idea WHY. It's been stolen so many times I've lost count... one guy in France was taking my renders and submitting them to a contest for monetary prizes... fixed his red wagon real quick! Contest administrators don't like to find out they've awarded cash prizes to someone for work that person did not do... they were QUITE cooperative when I said the L-word...

3.) 2007; I had apparently started dating and quasi-signing my images by this point. This was a Mike3 with all my morph dialing, and a BUNCH of different RDNA "organics" head-type props (some of which I repositioned and parented to other parts of the body) to simulate a sort of organic type of body armor. Poser 4 render, cartoon mode, and then it was further edited in Corel to give it a full-on cartoon/comic book appearance.

Vincent's other side isn't very nice.

4.) Another from 2007; also a Michael 3 with a ton of morphing and scaling to try and simulate a child's build. I know for a fact that this one was rendered in Poser 6, and then like the one above, very heavily edited in Corel Photopaint afterwards to get more of a comic book illustrative feel. I did mention that Vincent has a not-so-nice side...

5.) 2010; I think by this point I was working in Poser 7? I don't remember which version I had at that point. Signature, including my distinctive "C" were definitely finalized by this point...

6.) 2011; I believe this was a Poser 7 render... An M3 in the background, and two V3's. My poses were still a little bit on the stiff side, apparently. *cringes* LOL

The progression is really interesting to look at in retrospect... you don't see it until you start putting the renders all up in chronological order... really interesting!

 

[phdubrov]

With Poser 5, the clutter came in... and I HATED it. And the clutter has NEVER gone away...

P11 with select tool, synchronized selection and editable shortcuts is first version when I can really see scene.


library, hierarchy, parameters and tool palettes live on shortcuts and open only when needed. Library is floating.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

P11 with select tool, synchronized selection and editable shortcuts is first version when I can really see scene.

library, hierarchy, parameters and tool palettes live on shortcuts and open only when needed. Library is floating.

Well, hell. Color me impressed. They finally improved the interface! That actually looks usable from an outsider perspective! Much better than what P10 and PP2010 have. Nice!

This is what my DS 4.8 interface looks like, by comparison. Tabs all contain parameters, library, hierarchy, etc. Menus along the top do as well as the the little icons that look like notepads and the dropdown where it says "perspective view" contains our various camera angles/viewport angles. I keep my render settings floating, though normally I tuck it up in the right upper corner rather than the lower left where it currently is.

 

[phdubrov]

The only differencies with mine is that I keep content and shader mixer with main viewport, tend to close panels like GenX and LAMH after use and have some buttons for mcasual scripts.
For many versions I hated DS for one simple reason - no tablet mode. Still no tablet mode, but from 4.5. cameras no more dance crazy dances caused by stylus.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

The only differencies with mine is that I keep content and shader mixer with main viewport, tend to close panels like GenX and LAMH after use and have some buttons for mcasual scripts.
For many versions I hated DS for one simple reason - no tablet mode. Still no tablet mode, but from 4.5. cameras no more dance crazy dances caused by stylus.

I have to admit I don't use a tablet with it, so I've never experienced that particular issue. I use a mouse for everything. I keep GenX and LAMH open all the time because I do use them a lot when I'm working on scenes or content creation. Shader Mixer is still a bit over my head yet, I just work in the Surfaces tab for my materials; I'm just getting a handle on SSS and Uber/Omnisurfaces yet.

I definitely like the changes they made to the P11 interface, though. It certainly looks MUCH nicer than what I've seen with everything from P5 up to P10. I think I could actually work with that. P4 was the last interface that I felt able to work without being cramped. I'll probably end up with P11 about the time they drop P12 onto the market and have P11/PP11 on dirt cheap sale prices.

 

[Hornet3d]

I started around the end of 2004 played with Poser, Daz and Carrara before settling with Poser. I used Carrara as well up until version 8 but it just fell behind so I used Poser all the more.

These were my attempts in 2005.

And my first home made Christmas card image

Then 2006, this is Poser

I was surprised looking at this that the character already has the 'scorpion' implant on the shoulder, something all my charters have (much more subtle in my present Dawn character). If I had to guess I would have said it was around 2010 I introduced it. My how time flies.

And This is Carrara

 

[phdubrov]

Well, it's my version of P11 interface. In webinars you could see that default is much different, same as P10 if i recall correctly. And Mat Room is still clumsy. Shader Mixer too. (Comparing to Blender or Octane.)

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I started around the end of 2004 played with Poser, Daz and Carrara before settling with Poser. I used Carrara as well up until version 8 but it just fell behind so I used Poser all the more.

These were my attempts in 2005.

Those are pretty good for early renders, Hornet. I really like the Christmas card - it's just adorably cute. I have Carrara, and I did give it an honest heave-ho try, but I didn't seem to get comfy with it and ended up uninstalling it from my system after a while.

Well, it's my version of P11 interface. In webinars you could see that default is much different, same as P10 if i recall correctly. And Mat Room is still clumsy. Shader Mixer too. (Comparing to Blender or Octane.)

Yes, I very much figured that you had customized the interface. Poser's had a somewhat customizable interface for as long as I've been using it. It's just that ever since P5 was released, I haven't been able to customize it nearly well enough for me to use it.

The fact that you've got at least the main scene preview area customized that well says a lot to me. I have no doubt that the material room is stil clumsy; I'd really like to see them introduce the ability to select multiple material zones at the same time so that we can make changes to more than one zone *at the same time*. Studio has that capability, and it speeds up the workflow SO much that I get really irritated when I'm fighting with Poser's materials.

I haven't gotten far enough into Blender yet to start putting Blender materials together; I really so far have only used it for modeling mesh to bring back out into Studio and/or Poser for content and distribution purposes. I've seen some really gorgeous Cycles renders out of that software, though.

 

[Satira Capriccio]

Seliah, do you customise your Poser UI? Any window you don't use can be closed (I never displayed the animation window until I started working with dynamic clothing, and I rarely have the python window open). The windows you do use can be moved, resized, or docked/floated. I generally always work with my document window floating and all other windows docked. In rooms like material, cloth, or hair, I only have those windows open that I need. All others are closed.

I NEED to have the windows I use open and available. Which is why DS4 frustrated me so much. To get a decent sized workspace, I had to close everything, which meant I was constantly opening and closing everything! That works for some people, but it just didn't work for me. Now that I have a widescreen, it might not be so bad. But at the time I was beta testing DS4, I did not have a widescreen, and DS4 was definitely designed for widescreen monitors.

Ha! You posted while I was posting. So yes. You do customize. Just that you can't customize it enough for your needs.

 

[skylab]

During the 10 years I've been doing this, I rarely created a serious render. The majority of my work was either sharing free poses, or doing comic animations or still scene comedy. My rendering skills never really matured, but I had a blast doing the funny stuff.

There's been mention of "poking the anthill" in this thread...one of my early jokes was called Extreme Ants...so I guess this is what happens when they poke back a little

Then there was stuff like Riverdance. . .

Then I started working with Frank Nursoda's characters, and participated in the Slon Stranger thread on DAZ forum, plus the many FLO threads dedicated to his characters.

I remember the last image posted in the Slon Stranger thread at DAZ before the forum was taken down...can't remember the first, but I do remember the last...it was Blue Man Flisch.

From there I just continued creating funny stuff with Frank's characters, most were based on real life scenarios...and enjoyed Poser's hair room at the same time.

Probably the most complicated looping animation was using a hybrid character...Doc Pitterbill had the outfit I needed, but Nos had a more flexible face...so I combined the two, hiding Nos' body and Doc's head, to create a Beatles animation.

Now, I just continue doing pose work mostly...here's Hivewire's Fluffy animated...my avatar

 

[Hornet3d]

I am still using Poser 2014 for the moment but the UI is very different from default as I use a lot of scripts to change it. Camera panel plus from Netherworks gives me camera control from a small strip above the preview window and allows me to close the default camera window. The slim parameter dials allows me to get a lot more dials in for the same space. I have Advanced Figure Manager 2 down the left side of the preview giving me access to figures, props and lights and allows multiple deletes and visibility changes with a click of the mouse. That is really all I have on my main screen and all the others are moved of to a second screen but even here I use more scripts to make the display simple. I am not sure I could work with the default UI now.

 

[Hornet3d]

I love them all skylab but Riverdance raised the biggest smile for some reason.

 

[Hornet3d]

Those are pretty good for early renders, Hornet. I really like the Christmas card - it's just adorably cute. I have Carrara, and I did give it an honest heave-ho try, but I didn't seem to get comfy with it and ended up uninstalling it from my system after a while.

I was drawn to Carrara for the scenes more than anything and I could not afford the better versions of Vue at the time, while the lower ones sent my system crashing. Carrara just began to stagnate, there are still some tools that are useful but as I used it less and less I started to forget how to do things. These days I use Vue for outside scenes and I have not used Carrara for years.

 

[skylab]

I'm glad it brought a smile...it got the same reaction the first time I posted it on DAZ forum many years ago. I was constantly seeing things a little differently...

Sometimes I'd see freebies and ideas would come to me...someone created a candy corn texture for the Kon character, so it become Kandy Kon Katastrophe. Most of the animations are rather large for the forum, but this is a YouTube version.

There were numerous Hein characters based on famous people....and I do mean numerous...haha...here's John Denvhein.

...and Jimi Heindrix.

...and finally, a brief slideshow of some of the Hein musicians.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Seliah, do you customise your Poser UI? Any window you don't use can be closed (I never displayed the animation window until I started working with dynamic clothing, and I rarely have the python window open). The windows you do use can be moved, resized, or docked/floated. I generally always work with my document window floating and all other windows docked. In rooms like material, cloth, or hair, I only have those windows open that I need. All others are closed.

Yep! I do customize Poser's interface. I always have. The problem has always been for me (since the release of P5), that no matter what I moved, what I resized, what I closed, floated, or docked, the tools were either too much of a PITA to get at, or I had so dang many floating windows that they were in the way of my workspace, or, if I had the tools I needed open on the interface, bam, I was left with far too small of a document window a hugely smothering, choked and cluttered interface that makes me want to run. (Yes, I am horribly claustrophobic in real life, and sadly the UI's from P5 to P10 set that off something fierce! LOL)

It basically just comes down to, I want everything in tabs off to the side or at least out of the way. I need the larger document window to work in, and I need my UI's clean in order to not feel like I'm being smothered. And no matter WHAT I do with Poser's UI, at least up to the current P10 that I have on my system - I can NOT get that. No matter what I move, close, open, resize, float or dock, I can NOT achieve a UI that I'm happy with and comfortable with. I just flat out can't stand the UI in anything from P5 to P10.

The screenshot that Phu posted of P11 actually looks usable for me. Yes, I know he's customized it. But it looks like it's actually customizable enough to be comfortable. Can I afford P11? Oh, heck no! LOL. But it's nice to know that the interface has seen some serious improvements as far as customization and personalization, and if it ever drops to a low enough price that I can actually save up to get it, I will probably get it. PP11 does also have some other features that I would actually like to really dig into for content creation, but I simply can't manage the pricetag that it goes for. Too rich for my blood.

So... yeah, I *DO* customize my interface. And I have ever since Poser 4. It's just that the UI's from P5 to P10 have all been flat out NOT rearrangeable enough to suit the way I work, so... I pretty much just DESPISE the UI up to this point, and it's enough to drive me OUT of Poser for everything except content support (and I wouldn't even be in it for that if I had a Poser-native partner to work with).

Hopefully at some point I'll be able to upgrade to PP11; but at present I'm stuck with ugly and cluttered P10. LOL

I am still using Poser 2014 for the moment but the UI is very different from default as I use a lot of scripts to change it. Camera panel plus from Netherworks gives me camera control from a small strip above the preview window and allows me to close the default camera window. The slim parameter dials allows me to get a lot more dials in for the same space. I have Advanced Figure Manager 2 down the left side of the preview giving me access to figures, props and lights and allows multiple deletes and visibility changes with a click of the mouse. That is really all I have on my main screen and all the others are moved of to a second screen but even here I use more scripts to make the display simple. I am not sure I could work with the default UI now.

Yeah, I've done tons and tons of rearranging, over and over again... just can NOT get a UI layout that I'm happy with, not even remotely. I don't have PP2014; I have PP2010, and Poser10.

I was drawn to Carrara for the scenes more than anything and I could not afford the better versions of Vue at the time, while the lower ones sent my system crashing. Carrara just began to stagnate, there are still some tools that are useful but as I used it less and less I started to forget how to do things. These days I use Vue for outside scenes and I have not used Carrara for years.

Yeah, Carrara's situation is pretty sad, really. It did have a LOT of potential, but I think it's basically abandoned software at this point; it seems to be in the Daz graveyard along with Hexagon and Bryce.

Vue produces some gorgeous work.

From there I just continued creating funny stuff with Frank's characters, most were based on real life scenarios...and enjoyed Poser's hair room at the same time.

LOL!! No matter how many times I see that furball-with-a-face, I have to laugh, Sky. I think that's my favorite out of the bunch! That and the kitty. I get a kick out of all of them, but those are definitely my favorites!

 

[skylab]

I had a ball doing them...I mean really...and sometimes miss it, having a group around that enjoyed playing an endless game of "see what we can come up with next..."