The Best Way to Learn Posing
SadRobot
Posts: 116
What are some of your favorite resources for learning life-like posing? I know there are lots of rules about things like balance, where the character is resting his/her weight, etc. But I don't know the rules. Are there any coures/articles/videos that have helped you significantly with this?
Thanks!
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I honestly feel you are over thinking this. I don't know of any "rules", just keep limits on and look at how your own body will pose and it's limitations and then move the dials
The theme for the new user contest in March was posing You can find links to various resources in the first posts of the contest thread: March 2022 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Posing and Posing II - Daz 3D Forums
Try assuming the pose yourself if you want to check how it works.
Just jump in and use a photo reference. Even better if you can find one from a couple angles. Be sure you check your pose from all angles as well. The best way I've ever found to "settle" a pose to give it weight is to pin the feet and drag the hip down on the Y axis ever so slightly. (don't go overboard here or you'll wind up with a contortionist). If you want to give weight to, say, an arm resting on something or a hand, pin the collar bone and drag the hands. Pinning key bones and then giving a little tweak to other bones is one of the best ways to mimic "weight". Balance is trickier. It all comes down to knowing which bones bend so its always best to test things out on yourself and be aware of how many bones/muscles are active in any given movement (spoiler, it's a LOT more than you might think).
Edited to add: Definitely keep limits on until you've got a good grasp of it. Then it's often easier to do more extreme (but still lifelike) poses if you turn limits off.
+1
IMHO watching yourself in a mirror while making a similar pose is probably the easiest and quickest way to understand how to make a pose. Do it from multiple angles so you can see weight distribution as well. It's just as important to view the pose in the viewport from multiple angles as well. It's not uncommon for me to find a purchased pose in my library that is close to what I want but when the character is viewed from a different angle the pose is out of balance. After you see this a couple of times you begin to realize that even though the original pose looked OK. The lack of balance (usually the weight too far forward or backward) made the pose feel uncomfortable even at angle you couldn't really see it.
Thinking of weight, also make sure the shoulders and hips have the proper load bearing angles. For example, it's not uncommon for people to not move a shoulder "up" when a figure is leaning on their elbow on a table or chair arm.
It's also helpful to watch people move in real life .. just don't stare too much. People tend to get a little nervous if you stare at them for too long
(watching the same thing on YouTube or the TV is much safer).
I've also found that books on the human form and anatomy that are aimed at sketch artists and painters are hugely helpful as references. Studying the way a body bends and what looks balanced and elegant vs awkward and clumsy can be a huge help. And from there, it's really down to practicing with the figure of your choice so you understand how the pose controls work and how the model itself bends. As was already said, try taking the pose yourself so you can feel how the joints are bending or twisting. At that point, tutorials on Power Pose or the pose dials would be most useful.
Here are three different pose tutorials that seem handy. I couldn't actually find the one that got me started with poses - maybe it was too old and I'm misremembering where I found it. But there are probably tons of good Youtube videos on posing in Daz Studio out there. Or take a look at the ones here in the store.
Posing Fast Track - This looks like the sort of tutorial I would have wanted when I was starting out with poses. It looks as though it covers all the basics and some of the tools, which would be great for a beginner.
Powerful Poses - Yes, this is one I made with Digital Art Live. But I do sincerely hope it would be useful! There are tips and tricks for posing interacting figures and getting feet lined up with the floor. Maybe more of a beginner to intermediate tutorial, but at the same time, it's not covering anything terribly complicated. Just my method of setting up poses and the things I think about as I do it.
Creative Posing - This one really intrigues me and might be a great thing to take a look at. It looks like it has a number of different presenters discussing using pre-made poses and adjusting them to suit your needs. Might have some great tips and insights into poses overall.
If you need a more hands-on approach, get yourself one of those little poseable mannequins that art students use and use it as a physical reference. I used the classic wooden one for a while, then was given a fancier one called Sticky Bones as a gift a while back - he lives on my desk and gets a lot of exercise when I work on a pose set. If I can't tell from a photo reference how a pose ought to be balanced or how it might be improved, I put Sticky in the same pose and then I can see it from all angles.
Two rules:
Limits ON
Think about center of gravity, mass, balance & counter balance
at least two reference photos of the action FRONT and SIDE.
The best way to learn is through trial and error in combination with what has been said above.
In many fields the whole "education aspect" is highly overrated in my opinion, and it's usually pushed by those who are oh so eager to sell you that education in the first place. No thanks!
Never underestimate the things you learn through experience, and then use that experience to improve on yourself.
Worth getting this tutorial next time it's on sale: https://www.daz3d.com/the-art-of-posing
+1
I pose a lot myself, and it's also just practice becoming familiar with the methods and sliders in DS. Once you do it enough it'll become a lot easier. I've collect a lot of poses for reference on Pinterest, there are a lot of references on Pinterest, and I found it a good way to practice and collect interesting poses. I find it quite enjoyable to do now, I almost get in to a meditative state while doing it. But a pose pack or two can help you to get half the way where you want to be. Tip: Get a pose pack for hands, I use this one just for the hand poses: All Sweet Fashion Poses for Genesis 8 Female.
I think when starting keeping limits on is better just for practice to keep things simpler, but it will be hard to make every pose you see as some will require you to turn limits off.
Use a photo reference. You can also use this to generate a 3d model of your reference to use as a guide.
Make sure there are no intersections with other geometry and that objects/body parts collide and deform appropriately when they make contact.
"Life Drawing for Artists"
You can probably internalize many of these "rules" just by looking with a critical eye at a lot of reference images. I'd raid ArtStation if I were you. They've got zillions of packs with nothing but reference images.
And, of course, you might want to try this is a 3D app that has working IK and/or a professional rigging system, which DS does not. Blender has Auto Rig Pro and Rigify. Maya has HIK, arguable the best in the industry. Using just FK in DS, you will get tired of counter-posing really fast and think that posing is tedious, when it is actually fun, with modern tools.
Great suggestions above. I can suggest some of my favorite resources as well.
Possibly some links will eventually contain nudity given I'm taking about the human form and life drawing.
Life drawing is great fun and usually pretty cheap, there's something special about seeing the weight and movement of the model of real life and trying to pin it down on paper. Also which poses are effortless and which require discipline, which poses can be held for long periods and which only last moments. You don’t need any drawing skills but you might pick up some while you’re there, just take some cheap pencils/charcoal and paper. Your area might even offer tutored sessions if you want some instruction, but there’s just usually a model and you work on your own
https://anatomy4sculptors.com/ books are EXCELLENT. The original Anatomy for Sculptors book has a great overview of classic sculpture and what works as a dynamic pose vs stiff or static poses. There's also heaps of info about how muscles move and deform, which you'll need to compensate for in Daz renders. This is my hardest-used most-favorite reference text as a 2D artist, and I own a LOT of art technique books.
I'm always a bit reluctant to recommend George Bridgman because his stuff probably looks like crazy scribbles to most people, but there is so much amazing information in those books. Best stuff I've read on hand posing and how finger extension works.
https://anatomy360.info/ or other actual 3D scans of real bodies let you study realistic static poses and how the muscles look
Proko on youtube has a pretty easy to follow play list of rhythm/gesture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74HR59yFZ7Y&list=PLtG4P3lq8RHEQ1kiN_Nub1vXR8fQQLjDF
The Force drawing books - https://www.drawingforce.com/force-drawing-books? - for dynamics and weight
Scott Eaton's Bodies in Motion website - https://www.bodiesinmotion.photo/ (And worthwhile looking at the Eadweard Muybridge scans around the internet)
Pose Space – I’ll let you google that one because there’s photographic nudity on the front page, but it’s a huge collection of nudes taken on a rotating platform so you can view the figure from 360 degrees (it’s free to see the thumbnails)
The Vogue Fashion app is great inspiro
There are also photo references for a variety of poses for sale over at ArtStation.
While "limits on" is generally a good idea, I have noticed that for some extreme activities such as ballet dancing, limits tend to be turned off.