Product Title: Dark Mercies : Stage and Music props Copyright: 2002 pHil Rittenhouse Author Name: pHil Rittenhouse Email Address: prittenhouse@ppg.com Thank you for purchasing this Poser prop set! By following the installation instructions found below, you should be rendering in no time. ___________________ INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS: Locate your poser 4 folder on your hard drive. With a "normal" poser install the poser 4 folder is usually found under "c:\program files\metacreations" or under "c:\program files\curious labs". Inside your Poser 4 folder, locate the subfolder "Runtime \ Libraries \ character". Create a subfolder within this folder entitled "Dark Mercies". Copy the cr2 files and their respective rsr and png files into this folder, using the file list below as a guide. Inside your Poser 4 folder, locate the subfolder "Runtime \ Libraries \ light". Create a subfolder within this folder entitled "Dark Mercies". Copy the lt2 files and their respective rsr and png files into this folder, using the file list below as a guide. Inside your Poser 4 folder, locate the subfolder "Runtime \ Libraries \ Props". Create a subfolder within this folder entitled "Dark Mercy - Props". Copy the pp2 files and their respective rsr and png files into this folder, using the file list below as a guide. Inside the "Runtime \ Libraries \ Props" subfolder, create another subfolder entitled "Atmospherics". Copy the AtmoSphere pp2 files and their respective rsr and png files into this folder, using the file list below as a guide. Inside your Poser 4 folder, locate the subfolder "Runtime \ Textures". Create a subfolder within this folder entitled "CmdCtrlEsc", and within this new folder, create another sub-folder entitled "Dark_Mercies". Copy the texture files into this folder, using the file list below as a guide. Create another sub-folder entitled "AtmoSphere". Copy the AtmoSphere texture files into this folder, using the file list below as a guide. Alternately (and perhaps easier), unzip then archive to your Poser 4 directory using the "Use folder names" option in Winzip. This will create the necessary subfolders and unzip the files into them, as well as placing the textures where they belong. ___________________ How to use the AtmoSphere props: Included in this package you will find a limited version of my AtmoSphere volumetric effect prop set. The information below describes the use of these props to create concert smoke effects and other volumetric tricks from right within Poser... The following is intended as a brief overview only. I'm sure you will quickly learn to expand the limits of these props beyond my simple uses thus far... 1. PROP SELECTION AND PLACEMENT: In Poser, open your "Props>AtmoSphere" directory, and place the prop(s) within your scene. I have found a combination of props to be most effective. For instance, to create a fog bank, place one or two "Curve" props between the camera and the figure(s), and another "Curve" or two behind the figure. You can layer as many individual props as needed to provide the depth and thickness of fog/smoke/whatever that you're looking for. The "Curve" and "Plane" work well together when you want a thicker covering along the floor of your scene. Again, several "Plane" props can be layered to provide denser mists, or water (more on water below). In general, you may want avoid direct intersection of the AtmoSphere prop with the figures or solid props in your scene. Such intersections may lead to undesirable results, as fog and smoke usually do not have sharp points of intersections with solid objects. Of course, in cases where you're simulating water or other materials (again, more on water in a minute), such intersections may be what you're after. 2. PROP TEXTURE CONFIGURATION: There are 4 texture files found in the "Runtime>Textures>CmdCtrlEsc>AtmoSphere" folder. These are actually 2 separate images, but each of them is provided here in two distinct density/opacity settings, 100% and 50%. Layering full-density props obscures scenes more quickly, and at lower polygon cost, but doesn't always provide the rich subtlety that more numerous lower-opacity props can deliver. A prop as first loaded will have its default map in both the texture map and transparency slots, and is set to 100% transparency with no highlight. To change the density of your prop, navigate to the "Runtime>Textures>CmdCtrlEsc>AtmoSphere" folder and load a new texture into the texture slot, and change the transparency slot accordingly. You may adjust the reflectiveness of the prop by changing its highlight color, and/or adding a reflection map. Best results are obtained from using different textures on several props layered atop or in front of each other, and by rotating, moving, and resizing the props to provide variety. For example, I generally use several "Curve" props at various distances from the camera. These are assigned arbitrary size values, and given a range of textures and opacities. In addition, the props have different rotation values, and are staggered to the right and left of the camera, but the edges of none of them are seen in the field of view (This prevents undesirable straight lines or borders between props). The "Plane" props would be similarly layered, staggered, and scaled to present the ground fog. With some tweaking, you can lay the foundation for a water effect. Some of the water layers would be simply colored (no texture map) with the trans map active -- this gives the illusion of a solid (well, liquid) colored surface rather than smoke or fog. Layering the "smoky" layers with colored layers of varying water hues (blues, greens) will allow the simulation of watery depths. 3. LIGHTING AND RENDERING: The AtmoSphere props will accept coloration from any lights you have in your scene, but should not automatically reflect any lights or show highlights. As mentioned above, highlights may be achieved by tweaking the render material settings. Use of these props will increase render times somewhat, but I still have found render times on my PIII-733 to be acceptable, even with a combination of over 25 "Curves" and "Planes" in the scene. Happy rendering! ___________________ FILE LIST: The zipped files should extract as follows: Runtime Libraries character Dark Mercies Strap 1 (cr2, png, rsr, and obj files) Strap 2 (cr2, png, rsr, and obj files) light Dark Mercies BlackLite (lt2, png, and rsr files) Flash (lt2, png, and rsr files) PaleGreen (lt2, png, and rsr files) PressPitFlash (lt2, png, and rsr files) RedWhiteBlue (lt2, png, and rsr files) SpotLite (lt2, png, and rsr files) Pose Dark Mercies !Andrew (pz2, png, and rsr files) Andrew 1 (pz2, png, and rsr files) Andrew 2 (pz2, png, and rsr files) Andrew 3 (pz2, png, and rsr files) Andrew 4 (pz2, png, and rsr files) Andrew 5 (pz2, png, and rsr files) Andrew 6 (pz2, png, and rsr files) Props AtmoSpherics Curve (pp2, png, and rsr files) Plane (pp2, png, and rsr files) Dark Mercy - Props (pp2, png, and rsr files) Andrew's Classic (pp2, png, and rsr files) Console (pp2, png, and rsr files) Gig Bag (pp2, png, and rsr files) Guitar Case (pp2, png, and rsr files) Microphone (pp2, png, and rsr files) Mike Stand (pp2, png, and rsr files) Old Fretless (pp2, png, and rsr files) Quad Stack (pp2, png, and rsr files) Spinal Column (pp2, png, and rsr files) Stage 1 (pp2, png, and rsr files) Stage 2 (pp2, png, and rsr files) Stage Curtains (pp2, png, and rsr files) Support (pp2, png, and rsr files) Thumper (pp2, png, and rsr files) Venue Banner (pp2, png, and rsr files) Venue Banner 2 (pp2, png, and rsr files) Textures CmdCtrlEsc AtmoSphere map_01-50.jpg map_01-100.jpg map_03-50.jpg map_03-100.jpg Dark_Mercies amp_blak.jpg amp_crnr.jpg amp_gril.jpg amp_panl.jpg backplat.jpg banner.jpg banner2.jpg banner2_T.jpg banner2_trans.jpg bass_blu.jpg bass_pu.jpg bassface.jpg bassfret.jpg basshead.jpg bassneck.jpg caseback.jpg casefrnt.jpg caseside.jpg col_gril.jpg deckknob.jpg faders.jpg fretbord.jpg fretless.jpg gigbagB.jpg gigbagF.jpg gigbagH.jpg gigbagP.jpg gigbagS.jpg headbord.jpg jackpanl.jpg knobbump.jpg knobface.jpg les_head.jpg les_knob.jpg logo.jpg meters.jpg midiscrn.jpg mixrgrey.jpg rails.jpg spkrblak.jpg spkrgril.jpg stage_1.jpg stage_2.jpg stage_3.jpg strap_1.jpg strap_L1.jpg strap_L2.jpg strap2.jpg Read_me_DM_Propset.txt (this file) license.txt ___________________ Some of the prop textures included in this package used base starting textures from Jeremy Engleman, which he has made freely and publically available at: "http://www.art.net/~jeremy/photo/public_texture/" Jeremy has released these textures free of any restrictions, and I am grateful for his contribution!