Trick for ground poses

[mininessie]

well...posing in the ground can be a real pain in poser...since in DS you have the ground line showing permantly in the right,left,front and back cameras ,in poser you need the ground selected to show the line...this make so difficult to move the part of the body you want to touch the ground (perhaps there is an easy way to do it but i don´t know it) is more a try and error thing at least as i know...so...i had an idea.
* from the poser primitives i take a box
* scaled the x and z axys to cover all the ground i need for the pose.
* in the front camera i seen if the upper line of the box match the ground line.
* in the material tab set all to black and then set the transparency to 59.
* saved the scene as "scene for test poses.
now i have a permanent guide line to test the poses.
Hope this can help someone...if there is a better way,please share.

 

[Lyne]

Just click Figure: DROP TO GROUND with dog selected, and Click: Display: Ground Shadows ..lets you see if any dog parts sink into the floor too.

 

[mininessie]

Thanks dear !

 

[Bonnie2001]

Good tips, thanks.

 

[Janet]

Good tip! I usually just use left or right camera and the ground plane.

 

[English Bob]

Hope this can help someone...if there is a better way,please share.

I made a 'posing disc' for my own use, but if others are facing the same challenges I could make it available. All it is is a very short, wide cylinder with its top at Y = 0 (in other words, ground level). The edge of the cylinder makes it easy for me to get feet posed exactly right using the front and side cameras. The cunning part is that it's set up so that the edge doesn't render, so you don't need to worry about it spoiling the view. The top of the cylinder can be included in the render as a base for a simple character render, or as a shadow catcher if you're going to superimpose over a background image. Alternatively, once you're happy with the pose, you can substitute 'real' scenery such as a room, or a street, assuming your chosen prop has level ground situated at 0. If it's not at 0 but is otherwise smooth, you can Y translate either your figure or the scenery as you prefer. If I've set up dynamic clothing I usually move the scenery up or down to avoid having to re-simulate; but if the scenery is made of a lot of separate props it can be easier to move the figure instead.

Posing on uneven ground (many of Stonemason's sets include paving stones set at varying angles, for example), or on steps or stairs, can be another challenge, especially if there's some other scenery in the way of the cameras. Getting figures to sit on car seats is another potentially tricky situation. In some extreme cases I've chopped up the prop in a modeller to make a simplified 'posing prop' which is substituted by the real thing before rendering.

 

[mininessie]

English Bob thanks for your tips!!

 

[carmen indorato]

The problem with using Drop To Ground function is if the figure has had morphs added or character adjustments one foot may sink below the line and all body parts are not zeroed, the longest element will stop at line and shortest will float always requiring fine adjustment. I find it usually only works well with default figures or figures in default poses or figures without poses added.
I just see the problem a part of spinning those dials setting up the scene or figures in scene. I rough set-up to get the look I need and before rendering fine tune all poses of figures in appropriate settings.

 

[Rae134]

I made a 'posing disc' for my own use, but if others are facing the same challenges I could make it available.

Since I'm reasonably new to poser I'd find this very useful, especially if it set up as a shadow catcher especially for Superfly (I had a quick read about them and it went over my head )

 

[Ken1171]

This is odd - I can see the ground plane line from the orthogonal views (front and side), and I often use that to plant the character's feet on in. Maybe it has something to do with OpenGL hardware acceleration, which requires a reasonably decent video card to perform correctly. However, I remember the ground line was not visible in some older Poser versions, can't remember what versions specifically. But this is no longer a problem in Poser 11, at least not when using hardware accelerated OpenGL previews with a dedicated video card. Coming from there, if you can't see the ground plane in orthogonal views, it's either an older Poser version, or incompatibilities between your hardware and Poser's OpenGL implementation.

This is not to say that OpenGL is perfect in Poser 11. For example, there is a bug that causes all viewing modes that display edges to become transparent in the Setup Room. This has not been fixed in Poser 11, but I have already reported it to SMS. This means that back culling does't work in the Setup Room if you need to select edges (open the Grouping Tool), making that almost impossible because we are seeing both front and back sides of the model simultaneously.

 

[mininessie]

I have poser 10 .

 

[English Bob]

Since I'm reasonably new to poser I'd find this very useful, especially if it set up as a shadow catcher especially for Superfly (I had a quick read about them and it went over my head )

I'll package it up with what I have for Firefly; I don't use Superfly much and don't have a solution for shadow catching unfortunately.

... I remember the ground line was not visible in some older Poser versions, can't remember what versions specifically. But this is no longer a problem in Poser 11, at least not when using hardware accelerated OpenGL previews with a dedicated video card.

My experience is the opposite, oddly. In Poser 7 I can see the edge of the ground plane in both viewing modes, although it's thicker in SreeD. Nothing I do can persuade it to show in Poser 10 or 11, at least on this machine which has a Nvidia Quadro FX4600. Not very up-to-date, although that shouldn't influence the SreeD preview. I'll try this on a different machine next time I have access.

 

[Ken1171]

My experience is the opposite, oddly. In Poser 7 I can see the edge of the ground plane in both viewing modes, although it's thicker in SreeD.

I think OpenGL is very picky about hardware compatibility. It didn't work in Poser 7 with my nVidia GT 8800, but it did work in Poser 9 with a GTX 580, and it does again in Poser 11 with a GTX 980 Ti. It seems to work better with the newer hardware, even if my GTX 980 Ti is not the latest from nVidia. Compatibility with my older cards, such as the GT 8800 and GTX 275 was pretty bad. I was lucky that my current GPU works well with it. The actual standard is DirectX compatibility, so OpenGL support tends to be a 2nd thought for most GPU makers.

 

[mininessie]

I have a Nvidia GeForce GTX 650

 

[English Bob]

Here's a link to the Floor Disc, for anyone who wants it:

http://www.morphography.uk.vu/dl.php?file=Floor_Disc.zip

I haven't made a download page for it yet. That always seems to take more time than making the item itself.

 

[mininessie]

thank you!

 

[Hornet3d]

A lot of the commercial poses have one of the figure's feet above ground level, I guess this is correct if the pose is a walking pose and mid step but some of the static poses have the same issue. I use the bottom camera and,with the figure selected lower the figure until you see the feet or shoes appear below the ground plane, the part beneath goes black so it can be seen clearly. If it is one foot, maybe with the shin bent I select the shin and bend the shin until the shoe breaks the ground plane. Doing it this way I can even make sure only part of the shoe is showing or, if standing upright in high heels I can ensure the foot is flat on the ground with both the sole and heel in contact. I get the shoe to show beneath and then just nudge the Y tran until it is just the other side of the ground plane.

 

[mininessie]

i do that when i make images....but to make poses to sell...you need too the front,back and sides to check ,if not can be a real pain to make them correctly.

 

[Hornet3d]

I guess a picture is worth a thousand words.

Bottom camera view, the black areas are below the ground plane, I just use the nudge on the Y translate to lift the figure. In this pose when the foot which is flat on the ground is just above the ground some of the toes of the other foot would still be below. I would bend the shin on that leg until the foot is level with the other and then lift the figure to just the other side. If I want to be supercritical I just keep adding or subtracting the numeric Y trans until the whole silhouette is just grey.

 

[Hornet3d]

i do that when i make images....but to make poses to sell...you need too the front,back and sides to check ,if not can be a real pain to make them correctly.

I understand, I should have made it clear I am not a vendor so I am only talking about making images.