"Justice League of America" piece finally complete

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...This image, after lots of post, still has the hallmarks of Poser: bland lighting and rendering, a generic stock feeling to the characters, poor plastic-looking materials, etc. Batman's cape looks like it was a ball of hot plastic that melted over him...

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Thanks for your critique.

I'd like to point out a few things that break down your line of reasoning somewhat. You mention that the piece still has several hallmarks of Poser, and include the lighting. However, It was not rendered in Poser. While I agree the Poser render engie in completely unacceptible, you can't credit the lighting in this piece to Poser since I haven't used that engine for renders in years. What that tells me is that my OVERALL lighting methods still need work.

You mention the 'generic, stock look of the characters'. I modified every one of them. Some more than others, to be sure, but they aren't stock.

You also mention 'poor, plastic materials'. That, again, would be my own fault and not the Poser. Many 3D critics aren't familiar with the recent advances in Poser's material capabilities and assume it hasn't progressed in the last few versions. Poser 7 now includes subsurface scattering, reflection/refraction, bump, trans, tex, and all the usual methods as well. The problem with Poser in the area of texturing tends to come from the user base not understanding how to maximize their textures... and in the case of this piece, I also skipped a few of those advanced elements in the interest of time.

And finally, regarding Batman's cape - that's not the poser cape, but a cloth simulation run in MAYA with some post-work retouches.

So where does this leave me?

While I'm overall happy with the piece, and it achieved the effect I wanted as far as 'pure' modelling (with minimum postwork), I think I'll still use extensive post-work for clean-up. I'd *like* to have models that can handle the necessary emotes completely, but for posters and pin-up shots, there are elements that the computer just can't handle to my satisfation. I'm on the fence and still exploring...

Thanks for the feedback.

*EDIT* - Note to Battlewraith; I know Poser is a pretty low-end tool, and it's completely evil in the wrong hands. 99% of imagery created in Poser is really quite bad and hurts the 3D industry. But there are a few experts out there that can really make the program sing, and some of the best 3D I've encountered relied on Poser. Plus, I know it well and have heavily invested in it. I don't have the time or interest to learn a new package based on prejudices... because when you get down to is, every 3D package has it's pros and cons.

I think my personal strength with it comes out when I use it as the first step of a piece and NOT the final, as so many others do. I'll probably continue to rely on postwork as I have in the past.

Awesome work, Doug!

I especially like Red Arrow. Of course I have always been a Roy Harper fan, so I am a bit biased.

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Wow some of those are insane. I can imagine someday video games looking like that.

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Look at the cutscenes of games you play today. That's how the -game- will be in 5 years.

DarkJedi's stated goal is to be able to use Poser figures in MAYA to be able to create comics. By using all of the bells and whistles available to him in MAYA, he could make some really amazing images but the cost would be at huge render times that might make it hard to maintain a regular deadline. The trick is to maintain a balance between hyper-realism and the constraints of time.

While the zBrush gallery is filled with amazing artwork, I don't think that zBrush would offer the flexibility or resources needed to create a monthly comic book that using Poser would offer.

Having thought about this long and hard myself, I think that Poser is an excellent tool for DarkJedi's goal. As he goes along, I think that DarkJedi will find that he will always be tweaking and improving his figures as he discovers new lighting and texture settings and as new clothing, figure or prop pieces are released or built. Two years from now, his work will show a noticeable improvement from his work now. This work so far is excellent and shows the promise of great things to come.

Okay. I"m blown away by the quality of those galleries--they are amazing tools, clearly. I can't imagine getting that level of quality.