Darkwing said he would like to see WIP pics in case any else wanted to try Poser. I use poser primarily because I have no ability whatsoever to create new meshes at the moment. I am learning and hope to be able to soon. However, Poser is nice since you can use existing meshes and change them with easy to use morphs. You can also create new morphs for meshes using the tools in poser, but for most of my needs I use the highly detailed models already out there. I decided to do Vaernima next. So the first thing I would do is to create the character. For this I use Victoria 3. A beautiful and highly morphable model created by Daz3d and she is also completely free So I load her up from my library of models.

Next step is to make her look like Vaernima. I am going by the old picture of her from Daggerfall. So to me she looks like an emaciated old woman with very prominant cheekbones, slightly elfish ears, sunken eyes, ect. I had purchased alot of different morphs for Victoria 3 so that I could use her for just about anything. So I load the additional morph targets into the model giving me extra "dials" to change just about anything I want to the model. I start with the face... changing various dials until I get the look I am envisioning.

Next up... do the same to the body... going for that aged emaciated look.

Next up I am going to do her hair... I dont have any hair models that are exactly what I am looking for, but I do have a mask model that has a very similar "hair" part.



but its going to needs some changes for it to work...so I use the grouping tools to create groups of polygons and assign them seperate materials so that I can work with them independently... In this case I made the mask part one group.. the rings another and finally the "hair" another..



I then use the materials room of Poser 5 to materials to each of the three groups. I made the mask completely transparent because I dont want to use that part. The rings a bright polished gold and the hair I used chocolate with very high octaves and y axis values to make it looks stringy.



Finally just need to position it where I want it on the head and parent it to the head so it "attaches". This way when I go to pose the entire figure the hair will move with the head. The hair at this point doesnt really fall downward like it should, but I will fix that later with a magnet once I have the head in its final posed placement.

Thanks for posting the WIPS. i myself have never tried Poser as i tend to create the meshes from the ground up (for me its a little easier later to adjust things directly as i know where all the points lie) but Poser certainly does look intuitive and as we can all see it pumps out images of a good quality and decent detail very quickly

Looking forwards to seeing more.

Wow.. looks nice, I've always wanted to try some 3D Programs its nice to see how these things are beeing made

Next step is texturing the model so it doesnt look like a plastic doll... The nice thing about using the victoria models is there are literally hundreds of textures both for sale and for free for her. So I choose one that I think suitable meets my image mostly cause the dark makeup effects around the eyes look good on this model with the strong eyebrow ridge. I usually add a second texture(an alien texture this time hehe) as well as a bump map which will give the impression that the skin is less than smooth.



Next up is the posing of the figure. This step is a bit more complicated because I like the look of the dynamic cloth in pictures. So I load one of the dynamic cloth meshes first. Using the cloth room feature of Poser I can run a simulation which will apply physics models to the mesh over a period of several frames, ending with the final frame being the fully posed figure. It took me awhile to get the hang of this, but I finally figured it out.





Finally I place a gnarled staff prop in her right hand and pose the fingers and hand around it.

Next I go back to the camera view that I will be rendering from and place walls and floor props. Make changes to materials and textures on those for what I want..



Then finally is one of the hardest steps... Lighting.. Getting the lighting right takes me alot of time usually. The only way to tell is to place the lights... render it.. see what changes need made... wash, rinse, repeat.. In this case I wanted well cast shadows with a red light coming from behind that wall in that space near the floor.
When I finally decided on a lighting scheme I like, I add in little details. This case an earring, using a magnet to move the hair around a bit, that transparent plane with a reflective spot on it to simultate a ball of light. Also need to add green lights to illuminate that spot and others to cast green lights on the items nearby.

and finally the final render with all the highest texture filtering settings and shadows.... and you get...




Now I can go back and add more and more details if I like or change anything I need to, but its hard to tell exactly when a picture is "finished". The longer I spend I will usually find something more to add to make it better.

Thats my walkthrough of making Vaernima... Hope you enjoyed it and become interested enough to make your own... I would love to see them.

wow, thanks now I think I will try and dig out the poser 3 cd my dad has somewere arounds here (voice trails off)

*starts digging through stacks and stacks of cds*