heliumphoenix

Actually, having looked closer (it isn't obvious or easy to locate) there IS an evaluation download version of Modo. Modo Production Evaluation copy link is where you can register and try it.

n-gons, while having a few useful situations, rarely perform well in modern rendering engines once they go beyond a certain number of sides. I personally found that (while they would flat-shade better) they had shading issues in most production situations, and would have to be broken down to proper quad/tri meshes.

Older renderers used n-gons more since they allowed geometry to be stored more compactly (and memory was more at a premium then) but modern rendering engines are highly optimized around quad and triangle intersection tests. N-gon rendering is mostly accomplished by then engine internally subdividing the n-gon itself and creating the resulting tri/quad lists to feed on through the pipe.....

Kboc, Evidently I was misreading your intent in your "ALL" statement to be that ALL of the texturing was UV maps and nothing else. And, after your clarification, that wasn't your intent.

Procedurals excel in producting texture/deformation/geometry that can CHANGE during rendering based on the scene itself. Image maps are static.

Simple truth is that anything that can be done with UV maps can be done with procedurals. It may take ages to find just the right mathematical models to do it, and they may be torturously CPU intensive, and geometry may have to be horrifically complicated to utilize it, but it CAN be done.

However, UV maps CANNOT do everything procedurals can. They can do a lot, though. They are fast, simple, and can be shared amongst models. They can apply to multiple channels and create a huge range of effects. But they are still static, and therefore cannot alter from frame to frame (or based on scene information).

For a still frame, UV maps and Procedurals are interchangable (though UV maps are usually much simpler to utilize.) For animation, however.....the power of procedural texturing becomes a bigger advantage, since the texture can change based on camera distance, incidence angle, specular function, frame #, object position or orientation, or virtually any other accessible set of numbers in the render pipe. This is the great power of procedurals.

Is one inherently better than the other? No. But each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Now that that is out of the way.....

If you haven't checked it out, take a look at MODO, a very interesting modelling program. It shares some interesting common ground with several major packages, and some very powerful features as well. Too bad it doesn't have a free trial.....I'm sure industry people can find someone who's got a copy to borrow and evaluate, though. Student discount can go as low as $99 USD, though, so it isn't too pricey. Its JUST a modeller, though, AFAIK. But a very good subdivision surface modeller. LW owners can get a 'friends & family' discount as well, supposedly.

*LOL*

Of course the whole 200 procedurally textured characters scenario was extreme. But so is just slapping one low-res texture on them. Neither is really a good choice for production work. Especially for film content. Film resolution (if you are talking big-screen or IMAX) is very high, and very small details can be noticed even on background elements. This is why feature film CG animation is specialized and pricey.....

Obviously, a better solution to the '200 characters' scene is to use a low-res image map as your base texturing, with a few procedurals to break up the uniformity.....

The closest good example in modern cinema I can think of are some scenes from "I, Robot"....though those are actually easier since each robot looks identical. Imagine if each robot had to be different slightly. Procedurals can make it happen without outrageous memory costs.....

I never said it couldn't be mixed with textures.....

In fact, almost all BSSRDF shaders depend on image maps for light mapping, bump mapping (if you don't use a procedural bump function), and color mapping.

You, however, did earlier say:

[ QUOTE ]
The most realistic renders of human skin are all UV. The most realistic renders of human clothing are all UV.

[/ QUOTE ]
(emphasis added)

Which is simply not true. The most realistic renders of both involve sub-surface scattering shaders, anisotropic shaders, layered UV image-maps, lightmaps, shadow maps, and more. They also use hybrid recursive raytracing with diffuse radiosity algorithms. They also often take several days to trace a SINGLE image.

Check out just how realistic skin can get with proper shaders (including sub-surface scattering) without using much more textures that a light-map. SubSurfaceScattering Tutorial PDF

While high-res texture maps for skin are good for general purpose, they fall apart in two common areas....

First, they are fixed resolution. If you get close enough to the surface, they will pixelate.

Second, they do NOT allow for the translucency of skin or its special properties (such as fresnel effects at the edges).

In order to overcome even the first problem (and then only to a degree) the image maps have to be enormous. Which can quickly cause memory issues. Try having 200 different high-resolution characters in your scene. With BSSRDF and a few simple procedurals your memory footprint for the characters is very close to just the geometry. And all the shaders can be shared between the 200 characters, with only the paramaters (a few bytes total) being stored with each.....much more efficient, much more realistic, but much slower.

This: [image]http://poserpros.daz3d.com/forums/files/20668_1117468798.jpg[/image]
versus
[image]http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/bssrdf/face_bssrdf.jpg[/image]
is a question of aesthetics. Which is more realistic? I'd say the latter, though it is obviously a more idealized figure, rather than an aged one.

Don't get me wrong. Image Map techniques are still needed. Doing a full figure with nothing but procedurals would be excrutiatingly slow, and would require obscene amounts of geometric detail (a very high polycount). But it WOULD be extremely realistic. You would still probably require at least one or two image maps just for things that do not lend themselves to mathematical modelling (like vein structure.)

There are trade-offs to both methods. The best ground is usually found somewhere in the middle. A good image-map for coloration, combined with a perlin-noise bump function, all modulated through a BSSRDF procedural. Boom. Very realistic, without excessive memory or CPU consumption.

Oh, and also check out the latest offerings from E-Frontier (what Curious Labs has become) with the International offering of Shade which is a VERY popular modelling/rendering package in Japan....now available here! And there is a free trial version available too.

I'm still stuck on LW though.....just too intuitive for me compared to all the other packages......

[ QUOTE ]
The most realistic renders of human skin are all UV. The most realistic renders of human clothing are all UV.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, no. The most realistic renders of human skin are achieved with procedurals. Specifically, a sub-surface scattering algorithm combined with several others (including pores (a repetitive pattern), creasing (a semi-repeating pattern based on chaos mathematics, primarily only on stress-zones (elbows, hands, etc.), a hair shader for realism, and then ONE image map texture for vein details (optional)).

Rendering times for such layered procedural textures are horrific. I've had LW scenes with layering like that crash because of too much diffuse interreflection. Those that didn't still took outrageous amounts of time compared to a simple well laid-out image map. But, for true realism, procedurals ARE better and more realistic (including no artifacting at increased magnification).

[ QUOTE ]
Procedurals + Image is very powerful, yes. But procedurals aren't powerful enougn not to end up with a recongnizably repetetive pattern.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not true. Even simple procedurals can incorporate multiple noise & pertubation functions that make the 'pattern' almost undetectible except at miniscule scaling of the texture on a normal object (which makes little sense.) Just look at some of the output available in POV-Ray procedurals for a good example. Or any of several Renderman Shader definitions.

-----------------------------

Now for the whole Poser-is-or-isn't-art thing....

Poser is a tool for LAYOUT. Not modelling. Although it does provide rudimentary tools, almost ALL models in Poser are created in full modelling packages, exported to .OBJ format, imported into Poser, and then the animations/rigging/morphs/etc. are done. Layout is still an art-form. Does anyone claim a photographer isn't an artist because he didnt' create his models? Nope. He poses them, lights them, arranges them, and then takes the photo. It is STILL art.

Would a painter using a photograph from a book as a reference for his background be making 'canned' art? No. The artist still applies his own interpretations, arrangement, lighting, shading, and many other creative elements to the composition. Poser imagery (and most of what has been seen/available is from Poser4&5) is very distinctive. Poser 5 introduced the Firefly rendering engine to the Poser community, and they are still adapting to it. Poser 6 was just recently released.

Older poser images are VERY recognizable, as are certain 'tell-tale' abberations in the morph targets of the standard models (and those models derived from them).

Most Poser users use poser for EVERYTHING in production of the final image. This is WHY it looks 'poser-ish'. If, they created their scene in poser, using props modelled in Luxo, with a character modelled in Maya, and then exported the final scene and converted it to Lightwave, then applied textures and procedurals as needed, adjusted for proper lighting, and rendered a full system with particle effects, voxels, and everything else.........you wouldn't even notice it was a poser-posed composition (unless it was one of the early and very distinctive models from poser, like the p3 or p4 woman/man models.)

[ QUOTE ]
On human skin: I've never seen them look good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Take a look at A Practical Model for Subsurface Lighting and you'll see a new approach using BSSRDF from the SIGGRAPH 2001 Proceedings. It is possible, just time-consuming.

And, IMHO, Poser is a great tool for doing poses/animation tests.....it is quick, and can provide great feedback during the roughs stage. I prefer LightWave for doing my final renders and my initial modelling though. But the animation preview work always seems easier in Poser. I love using it to tweak a BVH file or figure out exactly how I want an animation or scene to flow. Then I'll transfer that to LW.

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, It doesn't surprise me one bit. I've got some friends that work for the con every year, and a lot of the time they treat potential guests like crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

This simply is NOT true. However, many 'guests' are used to having smaller and less crowded venues treating them like royalty, and those get surprised by D*C. DragonCon, unlike many conventions, is HUGE. It occupies (at last count, I believe) SIX hotels. And not small ones. BIG ones, in the heart of downtown Atlanta. The number of attendees is staggering. The last five years have had over 20,000 REGISTERED attendees, and if you count using the 'bodies/day' system 2001 had over 43,000.

That makes DragonCon/ACE THE largest multi-themed convention in the USA, and also one of the larger (not the largest, though) comics based convention in the USA.

They can pick and choose WHO they invite, and just how much they want to 'offer' to those who WANT to attend.

[ QUOTE ]
Essentially, Cryptic wasn't a big enough developing house to warrent DragonCon officials pushing through their paperwork. It has happened this way before. DC comics on the other hand, is plenty big enough to push through their application. Bet they still don't get comp rooms though...

[/ QUOTE ]

Size of the company means nothing. D*C will offer more to big names, but so will ANY convention. That's just trademark power. And I'm betting NONE of the 'advertiser' guests (ie, big companies) are getting much 'comp' from D*C. The raw advertising they get via the convention is usually enough.....

[ QUOTE ]
Dragoin con is traditionally rife with problems. Hell, remember the Tabletop registry fiasco last year? Totally preventable, from what I hear. *shrug* the people at the top there either don't know what they are doing, or don't care. Either way, don't blame cryptic for it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Once again, you don't recognize the scale. And you must not attend many large conventions. Tabletop gaming registration is RARELY run by the staff, though they do some support for it.....it's mostly 'run' by the gamers. Even event tournament registration is usually handled by the company running the tourney. Only a few of the staffers (who manage the gamer venues) might step in where needed, unless the Gaming management at D*C has changed dramatically in the last couple of years. And the gamers are only a smaller fraction of the total attendees. The largest fanbases at the con are the Sci-Fi contingent and the comics contingent. And I haven't attended a convention yet that hasn't had SOME form of 'fiasco' EVERY year. I remember several. And many of these 'fiascos' never reach the ears of non-staffers. HOWEVER, for a convention the raw size of DragonCon, let me assure you......they have very few 'fiascos'. They know what they are doing....but when coordinating that much stuff with that many people (many of whom are volunteers)....well, they do an amazing job.

[ QUOTE ]
The only reason DragonCon is still in buisiness is because it's the only decently sized con in the area, and the customer service people rock.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, it is still in business because it is VERY good at what it does, and it still makes money doing it. Ask Magnum-Opus Con about that....whoops, you can't, they tried to compete directly with D*C and went bankrupt doing it. And as far as "decent sized" goes.....it is one of the largest conventions in the USA....what the heck are you comparing it to? Chattacon? AWA? D*C is 5-10 TIMES the size of either of those, easily.


NOW, HAVING SAID ALL THAT....

D*C does have problems. Most are related to just how huge of a convention it is, and how 'excitable' many of it's attendees are. And no, not all the staffers are angels. Some can be downright rude, or mean, or even just uncaring. But most are doing their best. Some are just on their 30th straight hour of working security despite protestations by the medical staff, so they are understandably surly....

I've been there, and done that.

But I cannot fathom WHAT is keeping Cryptic/NC-Soft from attending.

And if I can convince a few of the higher-ups in the management of the con to bend a few rules to get them to attend, I most certainly will try.

But I have to know some details before I can try....

Statesman -

Please, either post here (if that is legally and ethically doable) or private message me concerning any 'issues' that are preventing cryptic/NC-Soft from attending DragonCon. I know quite a bit of the Staff (I used to be on Staff) on a personal basis, and I may be able to pull some strings. Heck, some of the staff may also play.

IF we know what the problem is, THEN we may be able to help.

DragonCon is the LARGEST convention in the SouthEastern USA, and one of the largest in the USA period. And some of us WANT you there. Shouldn't you try to work things out?

Yes, but will they attend DragonCon this year, since they cancelled out last year?

EDIT:
Nevermind....it seems Jack has something AGAINST us southerners. They avoid us yet AGAIN. After you bailed out on D*C last year with only a month to go, I figured you'd be anxious to remove that insult. But you insult us yet again. Not even a reason listed, just a "No."

I'm getting less and less impressed by the moment.....

*not happy*

Excellent.....

BUT

According to the notes up on the training room, the rollback changes are NOT across the board, but only apply to bosses lvl 25+....so the lower level players have to still deal with nigh-unbeatable bosses?

Hardly seems fair.

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe 9 huge oil storage tanks will catch fire and burn for 8 days around the same time.

Maybe the BP will host a huge pagan festival, and try to sacrifice all of Talos Island.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like that. Religious equality in our events!

(Oh, and it would be ONE oil tank that burns for 8 days, despite having only enough oil to burn for one. )

Oh, and for those wanting to look up more, this info was obtained from Rhode Island Title 11 - Criminal Offenses

Well, according to the Paragon Times 'newspaper' (see the stories on the main CoH website frontpage), Paragon City is located in Rhode Island, USA. Therefore, the major penal codes of the city would (for felony crimes) be either State Code or Federal Code.

Fire up your search engine, and look up "Rhode Island State Code Criminal" and you should find PLENTY of material to use.

For example: In Rhode Island, Felony Assault is Section 11-5-2 of the State Code. (title 11, chapter 5, section 2)

Robbery is Section 11-39-1. Commision of assault in conjuction with robbery, places the penalties under section 11-5-1.

For Vahziloks, ALL can be usually arrested under Section 11-20-1 (Disinterment of a body) & 11-20-1.1 (Mutilation of dead human bodies)

Vandalism falls under Chapter 11-44, mostly section 11-44-12, 11-44-12.1, 11-44-13, 11-44-14, 11-44-29, & 11-44-31 (depending on WHAT is being vandalized.)

So, use those internet connections!