Category Archives: Poser

Let’s Talk Creativity.

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Mark “Crash” McCreery's Baby Raptor

Via: http://creativejuus.com/

Do you remember where your first dose of creativity came from? Was it from a song? Was it from a movie or cartoon?

One thing I recall from growing up is that movies were my source of inspiration. It was film that taught me how to draw and tinker with film making.

This dialogue is especially timely since Jurassic Park is back in theaters but this time in 3D (I feel old). Just seconds after the movie started, I got chills from the dark opening score by John Williams and I found myself smirking throughout the rest of the film. Not only did I see Jurassic Park approximately 20 times in the theater as kid in Arizona but I believe my older brother brought me every little piece of Jurassic Park merchandise.

But to this day, I remember one thing and that was Topps’ Jurassic Park trading cards. These cards sparked my love for drawing. It was here, my love of not only drawing, story boarding  and truly understanding the power of pre-visualization started.

I wanted to learn how to draw like Mark “Crash” McCreery. To this day, I can’t listen to the Jurassic Park soundtrack without being transported back to the simple days of drawing baby Velociraptors as well as everyone’s favorite, the T-Rex. Thanks for the memories, inspiration, and art lessons Mark “Crash” McCreery.

The Hero’s Journey

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Hero's Journey

Over years, my art (primarily photography) has matured over the years due to one thing: A good story.

It sounds simple right? Just find or write a story.

I remember making little digital video shorts with my buddies in high school. I absolutely loved the creative process from start to finish but there was always something missing…

You guessed it, a good story.

My camera movements were smooth, my edits where clean, and my lighting was ok but after I made my final rendering export, I still really had nothing.

This is when I started doing some simple research about what it takes to make a good story. Since I was a huge Star Wars fan, I have always heard about the influence writer Joseph Campbell had on George Lucas’ work (especially episodes IV-VI). I soon discovered the path of the hero and the overarching storyline that has transcended various cultures and religions for hundreds and hundreds of years.

The story is simple; a hero sets off on an adventure. Along the adventure, the hero encounters many friends, mentors, and villains that test our protagonist. Through the adventure, a key revelation and transformation happens to our hero. This revelation forever changes our main character. The adventure soon ends and leaves the hero forever changed from by their experience.

In a nutshell, this is the path of the hero. When examining Star Wars, Lucas simply added new characters to the traditional hero storyline and set them forth on the path of the hero to fight the evil empire. However, this time, there were Wookies, Jawas, Lightsabers and sadly, Ewoks.

So before you start on your next piece of artwork, do some research. Delve deep within the history of your project, art piece, or animation and uncover hidden truths, conspiracies, and untold stories.

Joseph Campbell’s book The Power of Myth assisted me in my quest to find a simple yet effective storyline. Perhaps you too will gain some powerful insight into your next adventure! Check out YouTube for segments of the brilliant 1988 PBS interview with Bill Moyers.

The Name of the Game is “Theme Month”

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Brace yourself for some good clean fun and get ready to showcase your creativity!

Start sketching, rendering and animating – This month Smith Micro is looking for you to create your best image or video inspired by the theme of RAGE.

Artist Credit: Rocky Bracero

Artist Credit: Rocky Bracero

Give us your finest visual interpretation of rage. Just think of the last time your neighbor left you a nasty note on your car, demanding you quit parking in their “private” spot, even though you share parking on a public street. Think back to your body’s reaction: blood boiling, body tingling with RAGE, your fist clamping down like a Rottweiler’s jaw on the note your neighbor wrote you. Don’t let the the rage virus from 28 Days Later come over you… Just step away from the computer and come back to it.

At the end of the month, we will select 5 submissions from Anime Studio, Manga Studio, Poser, and MotionArtist entries.

All image and video submissions must be submitted here: http://my.smithmicro.com/gallery/ Deadline to submit is April 30, 2013.

Selected artwork will be featured in an upcoming blog post in May!

Chose your program wisely and get ready… get set… GO! 

 

Poser Expo | Runtime Live

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We’re extremely pleased to help support the first ever Poser Expo | Runtime Live event which kicks off on March 22nd, 2013, with a keynote from Steve Cooper, Poser Product Manager. There are limited seats still available for the 3 day, online event. Runtime Live will host a series of 10 informative and interactive webinars featuring a collection of Poser experts sharing their desktops and techniques. This event will provide a deep exchange of expertise, helping Poser artists and fans alike improve their craft, with a blend of inspiration and information. Looking forward to seeing you in there!  Register Now!

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

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PA060252.jpg

We have these two new “friends” in need of clever and creative help, big time. They are both looking for suggestions from some helpful, creative people. Being the uber-helpful people that we at Smith Micro are, we figured that all of the creative people (you know who you are) who follow our blog might be able to help us to help those friends.

Basically, our friends are in need of two unique, cool first names, one for a man, and another for a woman. Locking down names they can be proud of, names they can share at cocktail parties and have monogrammed onto their socks, names that people will remember is their goal. The needy couple is open to hearing new crowd sourced names, in spite of the risk they face being pinned with something archaic like Archibald and Esmeralda. They are excited to hear what name suggestions you come up with. And so are we.

What we can do to make this process simple is publish a form where you can share your name ideas. We’ll go through and flag the ones that seem to fit and then let you guys vote on the names. Our friends are willing to live with this, and are actually quite intrigued about how this will ultimately work out.

Don’t let our friends down. Help us help them. Two new first names, that’s all we’re asking for.

Experience Anomaly

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Anomaly

Witchblade co-creator and longtime Poser superstar Brian Haberlin, has just released Anomaly, an epic in proportion coffee table book, steeped in sci-fi fantasy themes with some extremely seductive augmented reality to help tell the story.

When Brian first demoed Anomaly to us at Comic-con in mid-2012 we were truly blown away. He starts out telling a little about a technologically advanced race that gets marooned on a planet where a virus destroys all their tools, forcing them to revert to their primitive side to survive. This is all very interesting, and then he breaks open the book. It’s glorious; impressive in both size and the volume and quality of artistically enhanced Poser illustrations.

P7120096.jpg

But then he cranks it up a notch or ten when he breaks out an iPad 2 and points the tablet’s camera at a page of the book. On the tablet screen we see animated 3D jump off the page; warriors, robots, ships and solar systems. Each interacts when you click at them. An armed guard jabs his spear at you, a drone shoots and cracks the screen when it gets irritated enough, a virtual spider like creature finds a resting spot in the palm of your hand.

Anomaly delivers on the promise of augmented reality. Even experienced 3D pundits like Jon Peddie shard that Anomaly was the most impressive thing he’d seen at SIGGRAPH 2012 after Brian demoed it for him.

Now you can get your hands on Anomaly the book and the accompanying iOS and Android app to experience what 3D magic Brian and his team have been cooking up.

OctaneRender for Poser

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product page

Paul Kinnane has made a name for himself in the Poser community. He’s a talented developer who has released two versions of PoserPhysics in partnership with us. The latest iteration, PoserPhysics 2012 can be found here on Content Paradise.

Not a guy to just sit around once he’s finished a project, Paul dug in deep to build support for Poser in the highly acclaimed Octane Render engine. Octane Render, what’s that? Fair enough, here’s what the folks that develop Octane Render have to say: “Octane Render is the world’s first GPU based, un-biased, physically based renderer. It uses the video card in your computer to render photorealistic results fast…really fast. This allows the user to create stunning works in a fraction of the time of traditional CPU based renderers.”

v4skintest

What do we have to say about Poser content in Octane Render? “Wow”. Every rendering we’ve seen from Paul and his users has been stunning. Photoreal. Goosebumps. Magical.

Enough hyperbole. Let’s head back to Paul’s work to enable this integration of Poser into Octane Render. One of the best places to get started would be his Facebook page with lots of amazing sample images from OctaneRender for Poser.

winebottles

Once you’ve decided to give OctaneRender for Poser a closer look, head over to Otoy’s website for all the nuts and bolts. Note – you’ll need to have either Poser 9 or Poser Pro 2012 installed, with Service Release 3.1 (SR3.1) applied. On this page, you’ll find links to videos, technical requirements and a detailed FAQ.

OctaneRender for Poser is currently in public beta. If you’re the kind of Poser user that likes to experiment and push rendering settings to how close to photo-quality your images can be, this is right up your alley.

Top 5 Gallery Picks for November

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It’s that time again where we shine the spotlight on some of our favorite submitted pieces to our gallery! Like our September Top 5 Gallery, this was an open-themed pick this time. As usual, our only requirements were that the drawing be made in Manga Studio or Poser and that image followed our gallery submission rules.

Manga Studio
Artist Credit: Alex Fusari
Software Used: Manga Studio EX 4

Poser 9
Artist Credit: Sandra Bauser Digital Art
Software Used: Poser 9

Poser Pro
Artist Credit: ISIKOL
Software Used: Poser Pro

Manga Studio
Artist Credit: Lolas-lil-wonderland
Software Used: Manga Studio Debut 4

Poser Pro
Artist Credit: James W. Rook
Software Used: Poser Pro

Just wanted to give a quick shout out to all of our new Manga Studio owners from our Black Friday sale this past weekend! We’re excited to see some new artists added in the mix.

If you didn’t get your artwork featured this month, don’t worry! We will be doing another Top 5 at the end of December. You can always submit your artwork through our gallery for a chance for your illustrations to appear in any of our blog posts or Tumblr feed.

Alternatives to deviantART.com

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When creating art, having an audience to view your finished work is idealistic. In a dynamic, tech-evolving world, online art communities have sprang into the spotlight. One of the most prominent, deviantART.com, receives over 150,000 submissions a day. Although deviantART is a great site in its own, most artists have established a profile there already. We’ve compiled a list of additional, alternative sites for you to check out!

Behance
Behance

Behance is an upcoming site that gives artists a place to establish a professional portfolio. It allows you to integrate social media, so sharing art cross multiple platforms comes with ease. Its design is something to be proud of, and makes it easy on the eyes. A lot of 2D artwork is showcased here, so Manga Studio users particularly should definitely check it out.

CG Society
CG Society

It has an established community that’s almost two decades old. CG Society offers good resources for both 2D and 3D art as well as other types of artwork. It’s a forum-based site, so it’s very easy to integrate yourself into the conversations, and get instant feedback and recognition for your works. Aside from the forum itself, the site offers workshops and other resources for artists.

Shadowness
Shadowness

Probably the closest design to deviantART, Shadowness offers a great alternative for artists. It’s home to many talented artists, and showcases many different pieces. Poser users should take special note of this site particularly, as its browsing section for it is filled with beautiful artwork. It has an integrated social media aspect, and a leveling system that encourages daily participation in both viewing and creating art.

ConceptArt.org
ConceptArt.org

If you’re looking for an active community, at ConceptArt there are always hundreds of people online browsing the forums. You’ll get a lot of participation in threads you create, and in turn, it encourages you to be active as well. It felt very welcoming to come to this site and see a new thread get ten replies in less than an hour. Engagement is one of their strong points, so setting up an account here is a good idea if that’s what you’re looking for.

Pixiv
pixiv

For Manga Studio users, PixIV is the best kept secret on the web. You will find the site to be a beautiful database for 2D illustrations. You can create your own profile and list your artwork in different genres of manga-styled artwork. One shortcoming is that unless you can speak Japanese, the site doesn’t support English yet (I personally use Google Translate on the site).

What’s nice about the sites above all have great browsing capabilities. All five communities give you a chance to list your different art styles in respectable venues. Expand your horizons as an artist and broaden your audience!

Do you know of any other good alternatives to deviantART? Let us know in the comments below! 

5 Reasons You Should Check Out Our YouTube Channel

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Content Paradise YouTube

If you like our graphic products, then you’ll love our YouTube page! The Smith Micro Productivity & Graphics Software YouTube page was established in May 2008, and has garnered over 2 million views since then. In case you haven’t subscribed or checked it out yet yourself, here’s five simple reasons you should!

1) Explore the History Of Our Channel

Content Paradise

The YouTube url is http://www.youtube.com/contentparadise because the channel was originally made for Content Paradise. One of the earliest videos is actually a 360° spin of our Darwin Toon Monkey. Over the years, it’s evolved to include content featuring art from all of our graphics software. You can relive history by browsing through videos that are over 4 years old!

2) Get Connected With Other Graphic Artists

Get Connected at Content Paradise YouTube

Join the conversation with other artists! We accept video submissions through our gallery, and we then upload them to the playlists on the site. Each graphic software is represented (Anime Studio, Manga Studio, Poser, & MotionArtist) and each playlist is updated as we approve submitted videos.

3) Learn About Our Products and How To Use Them

Smith Micro Software Webinars

Although we have a section on our website for webinars, we also upload them to our YouTube page as well. In addition, you will find various tutorials (some from us, others from users like you) there as well. We’ve collected all webinars and tutorials into playlists, so all you have to do is click play and enjoy them!

4) Stay Informed Through Subscribing

Content Paradise YouTube Browse

We are uploading videos weekly, as well as make announcements. You should consider subscribing to the channel, as you will be the first to be notified of what’s coming up!

5) Learn Who’s Behind the Productivity

Although we haven’t made one in a while, sometimes you’ll see personal videos from the Smith Micro Software Graphics & Productivity team. We love staying connected with the users and ensuring top-of-the-line customer service!

Don’t dally around, check out and subscribe to our YouTube page today!

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