What are you supposed to use Andy for?

Andy is the default figure that you can use to practice posing using the editing tools.

cheers
dr geep
;=]

one can use it for various renders and anims.  it may work faster than the human figures with all their textures AFAIK.  those can be complicated when one is just starting out.

Some very advanced users make use of him, because he renders quickly, as Miss Nancy noted.  Check out the scenes in this thread-he looks pretty good...

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2827768&page=1

One of the annoying features about both Poser and Daz is that they give you all this content but never tell you what the heck you're supposed to do with it.

Thank you all.  That floor and room were amazing. 

All I have ever done with Andy is delete him.

Andy is a practice dummy. I find he's very useful for practicing materials. He has an interesting mix of shapes, some thin, some thick, some round, some flat. And he's one material zone.

I'm sure that people who have no need to practice have no need for Andy. I, however, have yet to learn everything, so I think he's very useful.

If you are so concerned about the Andy startup, you can change it to a different model if you like.

Quote - If you are so concerned about the Andy startup, you can change it to a different model if you like.

... assuming that that's possible with Debut.

Another gret use for Andy is as a drawing aid.

For those just starting out, Poser is a fairly complicated program. Especially if you do not read the manual. Upon opening and automatically have a figure load makes starting a bit easier for the - ahem - noobs.

3D graphics programs are complicated; there's no getting around that. But the learning curve for Poser is unnecessarily handicapped by many usability factors that could so easily have been avoided or corrected. You shouldn't have to read the manual from start to finish to answer a question that almost everyone who starts up Poser for the first time asks, "Who's this Andy guy, and what am I supposed to do with him?"

Quote - 3D graphics programs are complicated; there's no getting around that. But the learning curve for Poser is unnecessarily handicapped by many usability factors that could so easily have been avoided or corrected. You shouldn't have to read the manual from start to finish to answer a question that almost everyone who starts up Poser for the first time asks, "Who's this Andy guy, and what am I supposed to do with him?"

Erm...why wouldn't you read a manual for program you don't know how to use?

???

Laurie

Or was it ...

You can back a horse up to a river but you can't make him pee in it, n'est pas? :biggrin:

Editorial note - The Language alert checked just in case "pee" might offend someone, ha ha ,

Quote - Erm...why wouldn't you read a manual for program you don't know how to use?

???

Laurie

From start to finish? Are you kidding?

Actually even if you read the manual from start to finish, you still won't know what the purpose of Andy is. He's hardly mentioned at all.

Quote - Actually even if you read the manual from start to finish, you still won't know what the purpose of Andy is. He's hardly mentioned at all.

same thing as an Artists Mannikin - the wooden jointed dolls you can buy. 

same purpose.

What does it matter what his "purpose" is? Do like almost everyone else does - delete him and load Vicky...lmao.

I think it's a bit beyond the scope of most manuals to tell you what to "do" specifically with your program. The short answer is, you do what you want to do with what you've got.

Laurie

Exactly.  Andy is the new 'artist's dummy' of a sort.  If he really offends, clear him from the scene and set the blank scene as your preferred launch state.  If you can in Poser Debut, in Poser 8 it is no big deal.

As to reading the manual, yes, some of us infact have... and the tutorial manual, amazingly enough something might actually be learned by cracking open that monstrous big pdf.

Why would the manual include a detailed write up on a posing dummy?  Uh, no point, if you read the rest of it, what he, and Alyson, and Ryan and everything else is for will be obvious.

Now back to reading that dreaded 'book', the new rigging system intrigues me.

Caveat: I'm a technical writer and this is an issue of near religious obsession with me, so I'm going to ask forgiveness in advance for being a bit over the top. 

Quote - What does it matter what his "purpose" is? Do like almost everyone else does - delete him and load Vicky...lmao.

I think it's a bit beyond the scope of most manuals to tell you what to "do" specifically with your program. The short answer is, you do what you want to do with what you've got.

Laurie

Harrumph!!!... I couldn't disagree more. Everything in an application should have a purpose. It should have an explicit reason for being there. In the parlance of MBAs it should address a "pain". Otherwise it's bloat.

I'm sure there was a reason why Andy was developed in the first place and why he was chosen as the default character, and I'm sure the Poser developers discussed that quite a bit during the process. My guess is that they wanted a human-like character with minimal features and minimal resource requirements so that new users could experiment and get a feel for the application in a quick and obvious way. Others have suggested that very thing, and others have suggested other things that Andy is good for, and that's an important point. Just knowing what his purpose is doesn't limit the users in what they can do with him. 

One of the reasons people don't read manuals is because they rarely tell users what they really want to know, and that is, at its essence, "What can this program do for ME? What can this feature do for ME?" Giving the PURPOSE of a program or feature answers that. Telling you what something DOES only hints at the answer. Of course, the Poser approach of just throwing stuff out there without telling you anything about it at all, is just downright rude to the user. It's like saying to the user, "Screw you, users. I don't have time to explain this stuff to you. Figure it out yourself."

Taking a "purpose-driven" approach to manuals doesn't significantly change their size or scope. It does, however, make them much more usable.

ok lets clear this up.

Andy has a purpose. he is the modern version of this http://s3.envato.com/files/192289.jpg the traditional artists mannikin.

thats his purpose. to be that wooden figure. no more, no less. end of story, good night and god bless. 

I can't put it any clearer.  if you disagree fine. won't change the fact that is what he is. 

Quote - 3D graphics programs are complicated; there's no getting around that. But the learning curve for Poser is unnecessarily handicapped by many usability factors that could so easily have been avoided or corrected. You shouldn't have to read the manual from start to finish to answer a question that almost everyone who starts up Poser for the first time asks, "Who's this Andy guy, and what am I supposed to do with him?"

And the winner for the most Stupid Forum Statement today is.....

Why does Debut start with Andy?

Why does an artist usually start with a pencil? :p

the main idea is not to chastise newbies for not reading the manual.  that's the purpose of this forum - so they don't gotta read it, at first.  they can just ask a few questions and start doing renders.

Quote - And the winner for the most Stupid Forum Statement today is.....

And the reason you consider it so stupid is...

No, really, Jax, I want to know. You took the time to declare the most Stupid Forum Statement of the day, so I'd like to know what made it so stupid. I've reread it a few times and I still see it as a rather obvious and ordinary statement, but you saw something especially moronic about it. So please, explain to me and anyone else who might possibly give a rat's *ss just what your thoughts were..

Well first off, as a "Technical Writer" you should know what a "Table of Contents" is and how to use it! If you had bothered to read your manual you would have seen "Chapter 9: Posing Figures where it explains just what you do with figures that are in your view port! Second, as a "Technical Writer" you know you don't have to "Read the whole manual" just to find out one aspect of the program. If the "Table of Contents" doesn't point you to what you need there is also an Index in the back where you can look up specifics such as "Figure" or "Figure Posing".

The reason "Andy" is preloaded is because if there wasn't anything loaded at all, New Users would HAVE to pick up the manual just to learn how to load a figure. He's there to give said new user a jumpstart on that for people who refuse to read those technical manuals that you claim to write. They can load Poser and Zowie! There's already something in your scene to push and pull on and play with.

That being said, it wouldn't have hurt the technical writers of the Poser manual to put in a chapter all about Andy, but.... who would read it?

And Miss Nancy, I wasn't "Chastising" the OP who asked the question. I was chastising the know it all "Technical Writer" who said you shouldn't have to read the manuals.

Quote - Well first off, as a "Technical Writer" you should know what a "Table of Contents" is and how to use it! If you had bothered to read your manual you would have seen "Chapter 9: Posing Figures where it explains just what you do with figures that are in your view port! Second, as a "Technical Writer" you know you don't have to "Read the whole manual" just to find out one aspect of the program. If the "Table of Contents" doesn't point you to what you need there is also an Index in the back where you can look up specifics such as "Figure" or "Figure Posing".

When dealing with usability issues it’s important to keep in mind who your users are. In this case we are talking about users who are new to Poser and are seeing it for the first time or maybe the first dozen times. As implied in the OP, their experience is that they keep seeing this Andy character and wonder what the deal is with him. Your suggestion is that they should turn to the Table of Contents and that would somehow point them to “Chapter 9: Posing Figures”. Well, how would that work? What would be the link in the user’s mind that connected “Andy” with “posing figures”?

Your next suggestion about using the index to look up “figure” or “figure posing” has the same problem. There is no obvious link between the question, “What’s with this Andy guy?” and “figure posing”.

Actually with electronic formatted manuals people don’t use the ToC or index that much anymore. Instead they use the Find or Search feature, and searching on Andy will, in fact, take you to Chapter 9, the only place he is mentioned at all, but even then he is discussed in the context of IK and bone count, and that’s not really answering the user’s question.

Quote - The reason "Andy" is preloaded is because if there wasn't anything loaded at all, New Users would HAVE to pick up the manual just to learn how to load a figure. He's there to give said new user a jumpstart on that for people who refuse to read those technical manuals that you claim to write. They can load Poser and Zowie! There's already something in your scene to push and pull on and play with.

The way that’s typically handled – and has been since at least  Windows 3.1 and probably since the very first GUI - is to take advantage of the File->Open menu. The standard dialog box that pops up tells you what file types are associated with the application (the “Files of Type” drop down), and, for most well designed apps, it defaults to a directory where there are some good samples of whatever it is that the app does. This invites the user to open up a user-friendly, teachable object that they can explore. What is not typical is for some default object to persist in loading at startup long after the user has done their exploring and even saved a few objects of their own.

Quote - That being said, it wouldn't have hurt the technical writers of the Poser manual to put in a chapter all about Andy, but.... who would read it?

Well, the best place for that would be in the Poser Tutorial Manual, but oddly enough, Andy’s not even mentioned there.

Quote - And Miss Nancy, I wasn't "Chastising" the OP who asked the question. I was chastising the know it all "Technical Writer" who said you shouldn't have to read the manuals.

I’ll pass on the ad hominems and just say that I never said that “you shouldn't have to read the manuals.” I said, and then later restated, that you shouldn’t have to read the manual from start to finish.

So, ultimately, it looks like your “Stupid Comment of the Day” prize went to something that was never even said, but something you just misread or didn't quite understand.

Not even going to bother playing the quote cut and paste game with you. Nobody here suggested that the new user should read the manual from start to finish "Except for YOU". Everyone else merely said read the manual. IE: It's your reference book for the piece of software you just paid good money for. You want to play word games you can play with someone else.

At what point is it safe to assume a new user will know what something common like "A Practice Dummy" is for? We see practice dummies all around us in the real and virtual world. When can we safely assume that people can figure out what they're for? There are practice dummies in art classes, in video games, in commercials (crash test dummy anyone?), football practice fields, CPR classes, need I really go on? Seriously? Why should we not assume that people already have a grasp on the concept of "Practice Dummy"?

As a "Technical Writer" you should also know that there is a point where you should safely be able to assume a user has at least a basic knowlege of the subject you are writing about or they wouldn't have bought the item. You don't see every software manual out there reteaching windows basic commands. Do you still want to tilt at this windmill?

Quote - Not even going to bother playing the quote cut and paste game with you. Nobody here suggested that the new user should read the manual from start to finish "Except for YOU". Everyone else merely said read the manual. IE: It's your reference book for the piece of software you just paid good money for. You want to play word games you can play with someone else.

Maybe you should do the quote cut and paste game because you‘re misquoting me all over the place. In your previous post you called me the guy "who said you shouldn't have to read the manuals.” Well, I never said that, and now you’re claiming that I said that new users “should read the manual from start to finish.” I never said that either. These aren’t word games. These are cases where you completely and totally have not grasped the substance of what I said.

Quote - At what point is it safe to assume a new user will know what something common like "A Practice Dummy" is for?

Actually that’s a good question and one that I alluded to in my previous post when I talked about knowing who your users are. Was it reasonable for the Poser developers to assume that users would figure out what Andy was about all on their own? Well, maybe, but obviously not in the case of the OP otherwise s/he wouldn’t have asked the question. My guess is that a lot of users have wondered about the same thing.

Finally, I feel I have to point out that you have abandoned your previous argument and are trotting out a new one. In your previous post you said that users should look to the manual to find out about Andy, but when I pointed out that he’s hardly mentioned in the manuals you switch to the argument that Andy’s purpose should be abundantly obvious to anyone – implying, of course, that the OP was pretty stupid to even ask such a question. Is this what you meant to say?

We're done. You have been told what Andy's Purpose is. You choose however to continue playing word games and tilting at your windmill. When it was suggested that one actually read the manual to learn what to do with the practice dummy you took that and played word games implying that we had said read the entire manual from start to finish when nobody had said so. You trotted out your "Technical Writer" credentials and your "religious obsession" and demanded we play in your sandbox. Game over. Question was asked and answered. Have a nice day.

I recently purchased Poser 8 as essentially my first program of this kind to learn.

I was confused to see Andy there all the time, and it took me some time to find the Delete Figure botton, I think it's called.

He was frustrating even though I could use him to learn about a few features. But I actually thought I could put things like a face on him, and had no luck with that.

Reading the manual helps, but it is terribly inadaquate in many ways for me. I guess that is why I have to ask questions here, and why I am learning so slowly.

So all I can say is this...  I read the manual, and go back to it way too often I think, but if it wasn't for the good people here, I honestly would probably have given up             on Poser 8 as way too frustrating to make sense of.

I started with Poser 5. If I remember correctly, it opened on a nude Don, gens and all, by default. It's possible I'm wrong, and it in fact opened with "Don casual" but my prefs got screwed up somehow. But for months, until I figured out how to save custom preferences, I was greeted by this fellow whenever I opened Poser.

What do you do with a nude Don?

Same thing you do with Andy, if you don't plan on using him in a scene. You delete him.

Maybe it's annoying for the brand new user to have to learn how to delete figures from a scene. But unlike the advanced materials or dynamic hair tabs, deleting figures really just is one of those things you have to learn in order to use the software. Might as well learn it in the first 5 minutes.

Maybe people buy poser expecting to pose Vicki in a temple right away. A non-human character confuses them.

Something will always confuse someone. I wouldn't have expected Andy to be confusing, but apparently he is. Maybe Poser 9 will open with a human again.

Edited to add:

Of course, maybe someone in the Poser development team suffers from the same problem I do: I feel very nauseated whenever I see a human figure appear mutilated. My first attempts to pose Don turned him into a pretzel and made me feel very ill. Andy would not have bothered me in this way. Somehow I doubt this is the logic behind Andy's existence. But you never know.

It's a shame that Poser is so "user hostile". They've obviously put an enormous amount of work into the technical side of it, and I stand in awe of the coders who make the magic happen. Alas, the interface, the content management, the manuals and all those other things that make an application usable to actual human beings are just terrible.

It's not unusual for coders to look down their noses at usability issues while they are building their cutting edge features into the product, but if their users can't figure out how to even get past step one, those bells and whistles are just going to sit there collecting cyber-dust.

I read in another thread that there was a major shake-up at SmithMicro. While it's unfortunate that someone may be losing their job, it gives me some hope that the new team will raise the usability issues to a higher priority.

Letting go of Jonathan Kahn, who was a cofounder of Allume, who they bought to get Stuffit, is not what I consider a major shakeup. Isn't Stuffit now pretty much irrelevant? Meanwhile, SM also hired back the founder of Poser, Larry Weinberg. Now that's a shakeup.

I don't get the inference of coder-disdain resulting in confusion over how to delete a character.

Seriously, what should it be if not what it is?

Touch the character with your pointy thingy. Press the Delete key. Seriously? 

User hostile? Funny...I'd thought that about DS ;).

While it's true that Poser definitely has its quirks, I don't think I ever found it hostile. Maddening yes. The fact of the matter is that no program, however well intentioned, can be all things to all people. Some will find figuring it out a snap and others not so much. It's just the way things are ;). But I don't think it was anything intentional on anyone's part to "confuse" anyone. And anyway, you can't get much easier than selecting an object and hitting the delete button.

Laurie

Hmmm. I don't recall feeling any user hostility when I first started. It's a reasonably complex piece of software. You don't learn it all in an hour, and you really do need to read some documentation. But hostility? Um... no.

Simpler software probably exists, but there's always a tradeoff. Sure, you can use Picasa's photoediting ability, and it has some nifty filters, etc. Easy. If the thumbnail looks like something you might wanna try, click it. If it doesn't look good, hit cancel and try something else. But it isn't photoshop.

I've certainly used software that is a lot less "intuitive" (usable without reading anything) than Poser. I never read the Poser manual when I first started, and I still managed to figure things out by googling my various issues. But I wish I had read it a lot sooner.

Expecting the user to read the manual and actually providing documentation about how the software works is hostile? No, not providing a manual at all is hostile. Poser's manual is very good. But it takes a bit of time to learn the software. It's not a Flash game or iPhone app, for crying out loud.

I was reading Andrew Loomis classic Figure Drawing for all it's Worth yesterday, and was shocked when on PP 38-41 was Andy, with how to draw him and use him and the comment "All the time you spend on this fellow pays big dividends.  Lern all about him."...

BTW, it says 'curve' by the backbone of the middle one...

Attached Link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/2433658/Andrew-Loomis-Figure-Drawing-For-All-its-Worth

IMVHO,

Poser being a "Posing" program (as the name implies), you get a very very basic "Poseable" character with no mumbo jumbo materials and thingies, so you can have a head start without the complications of a more complex character.

And it resembles the figure Andrew Loomis uses in his figure illustration book. As a learning and posing aid, this figure is IMVVVHOunbeatable.

But if it doesn't fit your needs, change the default scene for however you like it :)

BTW Andrew Loomis rocks. I have had his books since childhood. Well, I don't anymore, I gave them to my kiddy brother when he took an interest in figure drawing. Snif, I miss the books.

Quote - BTW Andrew Loomis rocks. I have had his books since childhood. Well, I don't anymore, I gave them to my kiddy brother when he took an interest in figure drawing. Snif, I miss the books.

Maybe you should pay your brother a visit...lolol.

Laurie

Maybe I should :)

Rats! Right now I really regret using the term "user hostile". I knew it was a bit over-the-top when I said it which is why I put it in quotes, but it seems to have been taken literally by some, and it has redirected the discussion in an unnecessary and non-productive direction. Sorry. My mistake.

So, let me try to get it back on  track. The question in the OP was not, "How do I delete Andy?", but "What are you supposed to use Andy for?" I imagine that most first time Poser users have much the same reaction that I did which was basically "WTF?" What are you suppose to do with him? Do you turn some dials to turn him into a human figure? No... Can you put some clothes on him? No... Is there a tutorial or a guide or something that talks about him? No...

When talking about Poser's usability issues, Andy - at least his use as the default character - is a pretty insignificant blip. It just happened to be the thing that started this conversation.

ok, once more with feeling.

He. Is. An. Artists. Mannikin.

he is meant to pose for artists to give them a model to draw to.

ye gods man. it's that simple. there is no hidden meanings or secrets. he is the modern poser version of the old artists wooden doll that many artists have. hell I have one right here.

why do you keep on about it? you've got the answer!

Read my signature.

Guess what???

The PoserPro manuals are here.
On my desk.
All the time.
Pretty soon I'll have to print a new set :-(

But then?
I know nothing.

All previous manuals are also here.
In a drawer.
That opens at least twice a week.
For X - reference.

Quote - why do you keep on about it? you've got the answer!

Because that's really not the question - well, not anymore. The reason I keep going on about it is because the conversation has broadened to the larger issue of Poser usability of which Andy is a small part.

Quote - Read my signature.

Guess what???

The PoserPro manuals are here.
On my desk.
All the time.
Pretty soon I'll have to print a new set :-(

Yes, I understand that Poser has manuals. It's just that they are not very good.

Well, for a small part, I do agree with you.

It could have been a more human, low poly, single map, figure.
Or perhaps even 2 low poly single map figures.
Keep one as reference, while you test-play with the second.
Render to compare.
Actually it is not such a bad idea.
Gonna sleep over it.