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Concerning Crows

Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
edited October 2014 in The Commons

Getting my spook on for Halloween and would like some advice on which crow I should purchase.

The top three most popular packs seem to be: Noggin's Poser Crows, LoREZ Crow, and Meipes Crows.
They are all similar prices in the sales, but I'm having a hard time discerning which one is "best".

Post edited by Atticus Bones on
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Comments

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    I have Noggins crows and they stand up well for close up images, whereas the LoREZ one not so much. If that helps

  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited October 2014

    Thank you, chohole. It does help.

    My concern with the two in the Daz Store was:
    that the LoREZ ones are only really intended for backgrounds, and that Noggin's is perhaps starting to show it's age.

    Post edited by Atticus Bones on
  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,313
    edited October 2014

    Ken Gilliland has his crows available over at Hivewire. The Product is called Corvus Corvus, the pack includes the Common Raven The American Crow the Common Jackdaw, the Alala (Hawaiinan Crow) and the Australian Raven.

    These are birds also included in other packs of birds, if you have any of his packs you might already have some of them.

    Post edited by scorpio on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2014

    Atticus Bones said:
    Thank you, chohole. It does help.

    My concern with the two in the Daz Store was:
    that the LoREZ ones are only really intended for backgrounds, and that Noggin's is perhaps starting to show it's age.

    I use crows, and ravens quite a lot in my images, I am not convinced by the song bird morphs for the larger birds I have to admit, and will stick with Noggin's one unless someone else comes up with a better one. That Meipes one seems to be not bad, but I am always a bit dubious when something is optimised to make flocks of things. I do wonder what the res is going to be like.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited December 1969

    Thanks, scorpio64dragon. They look good!
    I'm not sure if you've made my decision easier, or harder...

  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited October 2014

    I was curious about "Meipes Crows" and decided to take a gamble as it's hard to really see what they look like from the promos (the same can be said about Noggin's).

    Overall, I've got mixed feelings about the product. It's a really nice bundle for the price, but something about the crow's shape seems a little "off" to me. I don't regret buying it, but now i'm unsure whether grab Noggin's as well whilst it's still half-price. Any thoughts?

    mcrow.jpg
    600 x 800 - 272K
    Post edited by Atticus Bones on
  • Kismet2012Kismet2012 Posts: 4,252
    edited December 1969

    Can you provide a little more of a profile shot? At first glance this reminds me more of a starling than a crow in body shape but could be the angle.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    noggins very quick render

    crows.png
    668 x 681 - 139K
  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited December 1969

    Kismet2012 said:
    Can you provide a little more of a profile shot? At first glance this reminds me more of a starling than a crow in body shape but could be the angle.

    Does this help?

    profilecrow.jpg
    720 x 480 - 134K
  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited October 2014

    chohole said:
    noggins very quick render

    Thanks, chohole. It's the beak on Noggin's... I can't help thinking it just looks like a black seagull.

    Post edited by Atticus Bones on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    http://images.nationalgeographic.com/wpf/media-live/photos/000/169/cache/american-crow-illustration_16936_600x450.jpg

    https://s-media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/originals/94/83/ee/9483ee5b5dbd2764a1687efc38d55eba.jpg

  • FistyFisty Posts: 3,416
    edited December 1969

    I'm betting 2 minutes with a d-former/magnet would take care of that beak (assuming it doesn't already have morphs for it, I have no idea) I agree the Meipes one doesn't look quite right in the body.. it's a great looking bird, just not quite a crow.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2014

    Yes there are some morphs on the Noggins one.


    Carrion Crow Corvus corone
    Hooded Crow Corvus corone ssp
    Chough Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax
    Jackdaw Corvus monedula
    Rook Corvus frugilegus
    Raven Corvus corax
    Magpie Pica pica

    And you can dial in the proportions you need of each variety of corvid

    crows_2.png
    668 x 681 - 139K
    Post edited by Chohole on
  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited December 1969

    Ok, i'm sold. Thank you very much for taking the time to help me, chohole.

  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited October 2014

    Purchased the Noggin's Poser Crows. I noticed in the readme that he mentions bump maps, specifically that: "Poser 4 users may need to convert several bump maps from .jpg files to use the P4 files properly." Although, as far as I can tell, none are included... Does anyone know if they are (or have ever been) available before I set about creating my own?

    Post edited by Atticus Bones on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2014

    That just shows the age of the product. P4 couldn't use JPGs as a bump map and had to convert them to a proprietary format called a .bum

    I am not joking, that was the file format, honestly.

    This only effects Poser 4, and I doubt if anyone still uses that. Poser PP (the original PP) could use jpg, and every version more modern that P4 can use the jpg map for bumps.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • Jonathan BJonathan B Posts: 114
    edited October 2014

    I looked through the zip file that is currently in my product library and I did not see any bump maps in the provided textures and the MAT pz2 files list "NO_MAP" for the Bump Map. I have an older runtime at home where I installed the product using the old DAZ installer so I can check to see if that has any bump maps, but I suspect this product does not have any bump maps.

    The wording about bump maps and the sentences about PP vs. P4 texture options looks like standard wording from the DAZ readme files of that time period.

    Post edited by Jonathan B on
  • arcadyarcady Posts: 340
    edited December 1969

    I so need to NOT read threads like this on days with big sales when there are other things in my cart waiting to go...

    Oh on things like .bum...

    In the late 90s as the web took off there were a lot of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits over who owned what image format and whether or not you could use it for free.

    On the list in those drama wars were both of the two popular image formats of the day: jpg and gif.
    Obviously something changed as we can all still make and use images of those formats without paying some guy out there a bit every time we save to jpg format... but this is why things like the 'png' format was invented. And I guess .bum was also a way to avoid being caught up in that 90s mess.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited October 2014

    arcady said:
    I so need to NOT read threads like this on days with big sales when there are other things in my cart waiting to go...

    Oh on things like .bum...

    In the late 90s as the web took off there were a lot of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits over who owned what image format and whether or not you could use it for free.

    On the list in those drama wars were both of the two popular image formats of the day: jpg and gif.
    Obviously something changed as we can all still make and use images of those formats without paying some guy out there a bit every time we save to jpg format... but this is why things like the 'png' format was invented. And I guess .bum was also a way to avoid being caught up in that 90s mess.

    Actually when you did convert a jpg to a .bum file in poser it looked somewhat similar to a one of today's normal maps but in a weird sort of green/grey colour, and was huge in kb size. AFAIK Poser were the only ones who used .bum files.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,945
    edited December 1969

    arcady said:
    I so need to NOT read threads like this on days with big sales when there are other things in my cart waiting to go...

    Oh on things like .bum...

    In the late 90s as the web took off there were a lot of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits over who owned what image format and whether or not you could use it for free.

    On the list in those drama wars were both of the two popular image formats of the day: jpg and gif.
    Obviously something changed as we can all still make and use images of those formats without paying some guy out there a bit every time we save to jpg format... but this is why things like the 'png' format was invented. And I guess .bum was also a way to avoid being caught up in that 90s mess.


    From memory the .png format was going to do 'a Linux' and take over the world, especially when whoever owned copyright on the .gif format (was it Compuserve?) decided that enough was enough and started charging a licence for it's use.
  • Jonathan BJonathan B Posts: 114
    edited October 2014

    SimonJM said:
    arcady said:
    I so need to NOT read threads like this on days with big sales when there are other things in my cart waiting to go...

    Oh on things like .bum...

    In the late 90s as the web took off there were a lot of lawsuits and threats of lawsuits over who owned what image format and whether or not you could use it for free.

    On the list in those drama wars were both of the two popular image formats of the day: jpg and gif.
    Obviously something changed as we can all still make and use images of those formats without paying some guy out there a bit every time we save to jpg format... but this is why things like the 'png' format was invented. And I guess .bum was also a way to avoid being caught up in that 90s mess.


    From memory the .png format was going to do 'a Linux' and take over the world, especially when whoever owned copyright on the .gif format (was it Compuserve?) decided that enough was enough and started charging a licence for it's use.

    Actually, GIF has been a fairly open format since Compuserve developed it. The issue was that Unisys owned the patent on the LZW compression that was used in the GIF format and they started trying to collect royalties once they found out how popular the format was. PNG was developed as an alternative to not only avoid the LZW patent issues but also to provide a full-color lossless image format with an alpha channel for transparency (JPG is lossy and does not support transparency and GIF is limited to a 256 color palette with a single bit of transparency).

    Now that the LZW patent has expired, GIF is freely usable (thought still limited to a 256 color palette). GIF still rules for small animation loops since the PNG animation formats never really took off.

    Post edited by Jonathan B on
  • arcadyarcady Posts: 340
    edited December 1969

    For many things png has taken over.

    I'm actually surprised that current products here and on renderosity come as jpgs so often. I myself only ever use jpg when I desire to make something lower quality than my own copy... or when uploading to a gallery like renderosity's that has dramatically small file-size limits.

    As to who owned gif - I wasn't sure what the debate was all over back when. I just remember it, and remember people panicking that "OMG, somebody actually owns the entire internet and could send us a bill any day now. How do we dodge out of the way of the sky falling on us." :)

    I've still got a lot of those old .bum files in the dark corners of my runtime - I remember how they were a funny gray-green. They always reminded me of fishtank algae gone bad... the part that clings to the rocks in your tank in the spots your filter is not circulating properly... and gather up the fish poop, of about the same color... until you get off your butt and do something about it... :D

  • Jonathan BJonathan B Posts: 114
    edited December 1969

    jmbeach said:
    I looked through the zip file that is currently in my product library and I did not see any bump maps in the provided textures and the MAT pz2 files list "NO_MAP" for the Bump Map. I have an older runtime at home where I installed the product using the old DAZ installer so I can check to see if that has any bump maps, but I suspect this product does not have any bump maps.

    The wording about bump maps and the sentences about PP vs. P4 texture options looks like standard wording from the DAZ readme files of that time period.

    @Atticus Bones, I have confirmed that there were no bump maps in any format provided with the Noggin's Crows package.

  • arcadyarcady Posts: 340
    edited December 1969

    scorpio64dragon said:
    Ken Gilliland has his crows available over at Hivewire. The Product is called Corvus Corvus, the pack includes the Common Raven The American Crow the Common Jackdaw, the Alala (Hawaiinan Crow) and the Australian Raven.

    These are birds also included in other packs of birds, if you have any of his packs you might already have some of them.

    Anyone have thoughts on these crows?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,888
    edited December 1969

    The .bum files were huge because they were effectively .bmp files, with absolutely no compression. They were indeed preprocessed from the height map in the jpg so that Poser didn't have to calculate the normals at render time.

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    edited December 1969

    jmbeach said:
    The wording about bump maps and the sentences about PP vs. P4 texture options looks like standard wording from the DAZ readme files of that time period.

    I think we'll find this is it — yes, the readmes of that vintage had a lot of boilerplate text in them, whether or not it actually applied.
  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited December 1969

    Lots of valuable background. Thanks, everyone.

  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited December 1969

    Here's the piece i'm working on in the New User Contest - October 2014 (WIP Thread):
    Noggin's in front, and Meipe's in back.

    crow2.jpg
    720 x 960 - 545K
  • scorpioscorpio Posts: 8,313
    edited December 1969

    arcady said:
    scorpio64dragon said:
    Ken Gilliland has his crows available over at Hivewire. The Product is called Corvus Corvus, the pack includes the Common Raven The American Crow the Common Jackdaw, the Alala (Hawaiinan Crow) and the Australian Raven.

    These are birds also included in other packs of birds, if you have any of his packs you might already have some of them.

    Anyone have thoughts on these crows?

    Like all Ken's birds they are excellent quality.
    Here's an old render using the Alala.

    Alala1.jpg
    918 x 623 - 404K
  • Atticus BonesAtticus Bones Posts: 364
    edited December 1969

    scorpio64dragon said:
    Like all Ken's birds they are excellent quality.
    Here's an old render using the Alala.
    Nice! Those one's are next on my list.
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