https://www.posetteforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=2910&p=36959#p36959
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Whazizname
Thursday, 06 September 2007, 09:46 AM

[Tutorial] Making the most of a freebie auto in Poser
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As some of you know, I create a lot of Automobile renders. This is tutorial of sort about how to turn a interesting car download into a beautiful addition to your renders.
(These techniques should be seen as a starting point; you will undoubtedly think of other ways to personalize your auto freebies.}



Part 1: Selecting a model
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There a few key things that i look for in a car model for use in Poser; firstly: is the model legally available & allowed for my chosen use; meaning... does the site offering the freebie have the right to do so; and can it be used in renders where profit will be made?



Secondly, I look to be sure the model is a file format that Poser will import, and import well. I have found that 3ds is usually the easiest to work with; although a properly grouped obj works equally well. If the model you choose is not "Poser friendly", it can still be made useable with Poser's tools, a 2D image editor, and/or a 3D modeling application. 

What I mean by "works well" is, does the model import with all parts in their proper place; do the sufaces appear smooth, are the normals facing the correct way; does the model have the material zones properly seperated, and named; do image maps load correctly; do the images maps have "generic" names, like "tire.jpg", "glasstran.jpg", "Bump.jpg"? The perfect model choice will have 6 yeses, and 1 no; but what fun is that... after all this is about adding your own personal touch to the freebie.


I think the third thing I look for is, related information; knowing details about the realife car that inspired the model will help with things like adjusting scaling,  and making color and texture choices. For most modern autos, a quick visit to the manufacturer's website will get you the needed info; for older, or rare vehicles a Internet search will likely return fan sites, or photographs.



One of my favorite places to find auto freebies is: http://dmi.chez-alice.fr/models1.html; so for this tutorial we will begin by choosing a car from there. I chose the peugeot 206 from http://dmi.chez-alice.fr/models10.html; because it was the first one that i noticed had a file size over 1Mb; to me this indicates that it will have a high enough poly count to fit in well in the type of renders that I usually do. (Higher polygon count usually equals better rendered surfaces.)



So that's all for part one; next time we'll import it to Poser, and prepare it to be personalized. 
Feel free to post any questions, comments, or critisisms her in this thread.




(:


