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[Martin]

It's not obligatory to have bad graphics in an amateur adventure, of course. I personally want to achieve quality graphics too. But creating an adventure is a lot of work, and sometimes there is only one creator, so its impossible to make everything high quality. And you can enjoy an adventure (even every other genre, too) even with bad art, because the gameplay or the story is that good. So if you can create good graphics, go for it of course. But there will be lots of adventure fans who will play nice little games with bad graphics too

Yes, I agree with that. One problem with amateaur adventure developers is that they always hurry to release their game. Why all the hurry? I know how time-consuming good graphics are, but if you have created a strict plan that spans for several months or more, making those little details that make a game really attractive could become quite enjoyable.

I think that, after the 3d character option gets released, wintermute will give us possibilities for creating games of the quality of Black Mirror for instance (wonderful game btw), so the tools will be at hand and only more perseverance will be needed for creating such a high quality.

[metamorphium]

btw. black mirror uses sprites for characters, so WME is giving this option right now.

[Martin]

Really? Then they must have used a lot of frames. I noticed that the main character animations were not as perfectly smooth as real 3d, but they are very nicely made and the shadow is transparent. As for the NPCs, it's obvious that they're sprites.

[SBOVIS]

Poser is the most versatile, the so called poser look can be changed with post production via an art package.

I say the most versatile because the camera, lighting controls are excellent as well as loading a background to get perspective and height ratios of the characters within a scene.



With POSER 5 the old look of poser has gone and in its place are characters that look and can react realistically.

Get this with MIMIC 2 and you have not also a charcter designer but a lip synching tool for vocal speech.

You then can use these tools to create cut scenes, ACTOR animations, NPC animations etc , etc.


Remember though as with all graphic software you get out what you put in. You need imagination and artistic flare to really push these tools. (the tool itself is not enought!!)


 

[Nihil]

I think the biggest problem with the Poser-look is that most people use the standard-textures. If you replace them with self-made or bought ones you get a WAY different result. And the models (at least the popular ones) can be modified with the head- and body-morphpacks ... if they were not THAT expensive :-(

But technically I still don't like Poser, because the UI is crap, and so is the renderer (probably the slowest I have ever seen). And even with SR3 it does not run really stable on my PC, though I'm not sure if this is perhaps more a hardware issue.

I think DAZ is on the right way with Studio, but it's not yet usable because of the missing support for dynamic stuff and, most important, animations. But as it is still in Beta I hope the missing features will follow soon. (and another big plus is of course that it's free :-) )

Does anyone know about Poser 6? I heard that they started to develop it in 2003, but since then I never read any news about it.

[Erwin_Br]

Poser is quite expensive for a hobbyist. And I haven't seen many professional games using their models, so I wonder what audience this software is targetted at?

--Erwin

[PrestonD]

Hi,

Great thread and replies everyone, I really appreciate your comments and feedback. 

I did look into using the Sims characters and the Simposium software and there is enough free meshes and skins out there that you may be able to build enough of a colllection of characters to do a pretty good game with some character depth.

Another option I am actually considering is using live models and rotoscoping the video of their actions to capture all the actor/sprite movements necessary.  Thats another alternative...I know hiring actors is expensive but I think you can shop around and for nominal fees or favors you might be able to find some models willing to do it just for the experience and credits on their dossier.

Regards,
Preston D

[deadworm222]

Poser is quite expensive for a hobbyist. And I haven't seen many professional games using their models, so I wonder what audience this software is targetted at?

--Erwin

I know some people who user Raytracers like PovRay also use Poser. Anyway, using Poser must be the most unoriginal idea ever, so...

[Nihil]

Poser is quite expensive for a hobbyist. And I haven't seen many professional games using their models, so I wonder what audience this software is targetted at?

--Erwin

It's not THAT expensive compared to other software actually.

The main audience is people who like to do some nice pics with elves, dragons and nude girls I suppose :-) It does not target the game-designer scene.

[SBOVIS]

I am a bit confused by some of these replies, If you have used POSER in any shape or form you will realise that it is a character manipulator NOT a modeller.

You create the models in 3DS MAX or Lightwave then import into POSER to manipulate, animate, light etc.
This product is good at what it does but hey you do need to know how to use it and understand its strengths and weaknesses.

Milkshape is a good moddeler for low poly models but the industry is moving forward with very high definition models. Just look at the UNREAL 3 engine to see what I mean.


Games with low poly models, and game creators like 3D GAMESTUDIO always look flat, angular and lack lustre.

I believe if you create excellent good looking models in a high poly modeller and then animate using,  say poser 5.
Then save as TGA or BMP, import into Sprite edit and then into the WME engine you would be suprised at the results. I was, and am using this method for all my NPC`s for my project LIMBO of the LOST.

 

[gfx johnny]

I beg to differ. I guess it's all about your perspective. AFAIK Poser 5 has a new good render engine behind it, so the results are (almost?) as beautiful using state of the art render tools (brazil, vray, mental ray and so on). So i think no one will be surprised at good outcomes using poser for prerendered characters.
It's about a comparison between poser and other solutions, and a comparison about your skills. If you can create a model from scratch, setup the rig and animate it, poser would be only an alternative because of its price. Poser is not the most versatile app, if you ask me. That would be 3ds max or maya, cinema etc. Because there you have also excellent possibilities for camera, lighting, animation, and modeling too. If anything, it is the other way round, with that awkward interface of Poser. It is nice if you are not able to create your model all alone and regarding the fee.
So yes, Poser is has its strengths, and i'm sure you can create high quality content for your game.

The main audience is people who like to do some nice pics with elves, dragons and nude girls I suppose :-)

That was a good one  Exactly my feeling when i looked up several poser galleries a long time ago.

[Tol]

blender has everything, including a full animation support rivaling even ligtwave in that respect

there is a plugin called makehuman, which gives you a completed model that you can modify every single bodypart of (including breast size and various aspects of the genitals ), the problem is that there is no support for clothes afaik

Blender should have cloth simulator (resp. soft bodies) in latest release but due to it´s betatesting and bugs killing it  didn´t make it in time so it will be in 2.36 on 99%.  I have seen some animations from betatesting of this feature and it looked quite impressive

Btw- besides it´s modelling capabilities, which were greatly improved with recently 2.35 version and character rigging animation tools you may also like Blender´s unwrap tools for draw your UV maps textures  like LSCM unwrap which speed up process really significantly

As for MakeHuman- it is something like Poser supplement with some nice and not so common animation features planned for the further development, but like in Poser, those meshes are rather hi-res and If I am not mistaken, animation isn´t done via armatures (bones) directly so ...

[Nihil]

Btw- besides it´s modelling capabilities, which were greatly improved with recently 2.35 version and character rigging animation tools you may also like Blender´s unwrap tools for draw your UV maps textures  like LSCM unwrap which speed up process really significantly

This is OT, excuse me, but: Do you (or anyone else) know any good tutorial that explains all the UV-features in an easy way?

[Nihil]

And some news: For anyone who is interested in using Poser-models but not Poser, DAZ3d released a new beta-version of Studio which contains basic animation support now - if you don't know the software, it's designed for using Poser-content, but has an interface that is more like "normal" 3d-Apps, and, it's freeware :-)

[Nihil]

Btw- besides it´s modelling capabilities, which were greatly improved with recently 2.35 version and character rigging animation tools you may also like Blender´s unwrap tools for draw your UV maps textures  like LSCM unwrap which speed up process really significantly

This is OT, excuse me, but: Do you (or anyone else) know any good tutorial that explains all the UV-features in an easy way?

OT again ;-)

I found a good video tutorial done by GreyBeard that explains the LSCM-feature in an idiot-prove-way (that means, I understood it ;-) ): http://www.blender3d.org/cms/Model_Material_Light.397.0.html