How do you make an opening door in Poser (4)? I mean.. I can make a morph that will open it, but it will look very silly between the 0 and 90 degree settings, not to speak of angles above 90 degrees. I've had this problem before, but it has so far been on free stuff where I could "live with it" Now I need an opening closet and... HOW? Do I need to make it a character? I'd rather not, as all the other props will be..props, and I don't want them separated. Parenting? If so, could anyone please explain it to me without TOO much "technobabble"? TIA ~TrekkieGrrrl

there are to my knowledge two options: 1. You dive in to the world of joint editing assuming that A. you haven't done that already B. It is only a door and not a door plus frame if it is this tutorial is quite helpfull but it does turn your prop in to figure (character) but frankly I don't see problem with this. http://www.morphworld30.com/dsl/class01assingment1.html 2. Again turning it in to a figure but this time with the hierachy editor. You find a short how-to-do in the poser help file. Although haven't tried this yet I do think this will have the result that you only reneder with one material so the door and handle, assuming there is a handle, will both have a wood texture. I hope this is helpfull and taht is not to much technobabble. Regards, Jan-Jaap

Try this:-

• Load the closet and door prop and position as required.
• Open the hierarchy window and drag "door" on top of "closet" thus parenting the door to the closet. You could also achieved this in the Object/Properties dialog.
• Select the view from top camera.
• Open the joint editor (Window/Joint Editor)
• In the drop down list at the top of the Joint Editor select center.
• In the document window drag the green center cross hairs to where the hinge will be.
• Back to main camera view
• Select the door and turn the yRotate dial. The door should open.
• Double click this yRotate dial to bring up its edit window. You can now rename it "open-close" and if required set its limits. Click OK
• Finally, again if required, go to Figure/use limits

That should do it :)

Thanks PhilC. I'll try that at once. While you're at it.... Any good and equally easy-to-understand way of making an opening drawer? I guess it's something with parenting again? Only this time it should slide and not rotate...and then I'm a bit lost. I made it work (at least to some degree) with my poseable syringe, but... I forgot how :o}

Yep exactly the same except that you do not need to position the center. You'll slide open and closed with one of the translate dials.

If you're doing a CR2, you have to manually edit the "hidden" lines so that the proper Tran dial is the only one available. CR2's normally make only rotations visible. Because you can't always determine in advance which direction is the sliding direction, first make all three Tran's visible ("hidden 0"); then determine which direction is the sliding direction, and determine its limits by moving it. Set the "min" and "max" lines to those values, and set forceLimits to 4. Go back and set "hidden" to 1 on the other two Tran's. Here's one of the three paragraphs so you'll know what to look for: translateY ytran { name GetStringRes(1028,13) initValue 0.000000 hidden 0 forceLimits 0 min -100000.000000 max 100000.000000 trackingScale 0.002000 keys { static 0 k 0 0.000000 } interpStyleLocked 0 }

Ockham, and if it's not a cr2 but a pp2? Can I hide the 2 unused dials then? (and same thing goes for the door, which now works like a charm - THANKS PHILC!) Oh and another thing that pops in my mind now.. there are 4 drawers.... That won't make any problems, will it? or in other words...how do I get 4 "open drawer [number]" dials in the pps?

Yes, you can. It's the same thing: edit the PP2, find the "hidden 0" line and change to "hidden 1". On the question of 4 drawers: If you hide every "channel" except the one translation that pulls the drawer out (probably zTran if you built the structure in a typical way) you don't need to worry about naming. The user can simply click on Drawer 4, and will then see Drawer 4 with only one dial under it, named "Open". If you want all the controls to be in one place under the main body of the dresser, you'll need to use the ERC (Value Parm) trick, which has been discussed heavily here...... It's a good thing to learn. But not desperately needed in this case.

Very nice! A couple of hints: The ERC trick is definitely worth the learning time. A stove like this can use it in many places. (See my "1920's Stove" in freestuff for examples) Also, Poser really likes CR2 better than PP2. For any fairly complicated object, it's better to use CR2. Most important reason: you can't delete all of a PP2 from a scene at once. Each piece must be deleted separately. When the same pieces are combined into a figure, the user can delete the figure with one step.

How come CR2's seem to be "lighter" than PP2's? One can export a CR2 as an OBJ or 3DS and reimport it, but it is a larger file.

I don't know what the intent of Poser's creators was, but it feels like this: Poser treats a PP2 as a temporary packages of separate objects, which can be tied together by parenting but nothing more. You can export each of the objects but you can't do anything with the entire collection, because it isn't considered to be "one thing". A CR2 figure is treated as one unified thing, with its parts connected by various Twist and Bend parameters internally; Poser tries to "blend" the parts together, not always successfully.

So now I HAVE my oven - and my drawers - as pp2's. And they work as they're supposed to. But if I were to change them into a cr2, how would I do that? And would I have to do all the importing and parenting again? Possibly in another way? I've made over 100 props, but not a single cr2...heh.... go figure... Apart from the deletion thing I can't see any advantages of cr2's to pp2's. But then again, I would never have THOUGHT of making it a character in the first place :o)

I wrestled with the same question, because I make only inanimate things, and the CR2 is intended for humanoids. It's -definitely- more difficult to adapt to furniture and such. But I finally decided that the CR2 is best, partly for the deletion convenience, but mainly because scaling doesn't work well in a PP2. If you scale the main part, the others will not follow properly. (This can be helped by editing the PP2 and replacing "scale" statements on the main part with "propagatingScale", but the result still isn't quite satisfactory.) Also, there isn't a pre-defined central part on a PP2, so there's not one obvious place to "grab" when moving it around. It's too easy to move one section with the mouse, which can discombobulate the entire thing.

"But if I were to change them into a cr2, how would I do that? And would I have to do all the importing and parenting again? Possibly in another way?" The starting point is easy. 1. Bring in the PP2 2. Be sure everything is parented to the central part. 3. Select the central part. 4. Open hierarchy editor. 5. Hit "Create New figure" and fill in a name. 6. The CR2 will appear under Characters:New Figures. But the rest is more tricky. One thing you need to do immediately is to replace all "bend 1" with "bend 0" in the CR2. But after that, you may have to remake the materials list, which is a topic unto itself. (If each of the original objects begins with a unique material name, not just "Preview", this is less of a problem.)

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I need a working kitchen are you gonna do a whole thing?

What about using the PHI utility. Is that not what it for? Sams3d had a tutorial for it, can't find it now. So I have PHI installed in poser but cant remember how to use it. Tashar 59

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ernyoka, Below is a reply I made to a similar question recently. I kept a copy because I can't be bothered typing it out again, and the topic comes up regularly. Anyway, these are the steps to make a cr2 in poser. I've been making my own furniture cr2s for the past 6 months and a cr2 is WAY better than a pp2. If you make a pp2, the user has to save multiple parts and it's generally a PITA. ----------------------------- #reply starts here Yes, what you're asking is possible, but it would be easier if the props were combined to make a figure, rather than a prop. It's not THAT difficult to do. I'll try to run through the basic steps of making a simple box figure with lid. 1. Open the poser box prop and scale it to the length of your box, using the X and Y scale dials. Reduce the Zscale (thickness or depth) to about 5%. Do this with 4 boxes for front, back, top and bottom. 2. Do the same again with another 2 boxes for the sides. 3. Position all the boxes so they form a cube, and if possible, make a note of the box numbers and where they are. This will help you later to know which ones are which. 4. Go to Menu/File/Export/Wavefront OBJ and in the 1st dialog box, click OK for single frame, then in the 2nd (the hierarchy box), make sure your 6 boxes are all checked. Hit OK, type in a name for your obj, then in the last dialog box, UNCHECK EVERYTHING EXCEPT THE 1ST OPTION (include body part names in polygon groups). You now have your box obj saved. This file needs to be stored somewhere in Runtime/Geometries/Whatever folder. Poser now needs a PHI file to create a figure. If you don't have PHI Builder (free app in Utilities), you can easily make a PHI file in notepad. This is what you type. objFile :Runtime:Geometries:YourFolder:YourFilename.obj 1 box_1 xyz 1 box_2 xyz 1 box_3 xyz 1 box_4 xyz 1 box_5 xyz 1 box_6 xyz Save that with a name and the extension .PHI. like box.PHI, then open poser and go to Menu/File/Convert Hier File. Poser will ask you to name the new figure and a new entry will be added to New Figures in the library. NOTHING WILL APPEAR IN THE DOCUMENT WINDOW. Don't panic! Double-click on the new entry and it will open. You should now have a box with a BODY and 6 body parts (boxes 1 - 6). All you need to do now is select each body part and turn off the 'bend' option. You can also rename them to front, back, lid, sides, etc. To make the lid posable. 1. Select the 'lid' body part and go to Menu/Window/Joint Editor. 2. You'll see 2 crosses on the lid, a green and a red one. Use the different cameras (especially Top) to get the correct view, and either use the mouse to move the center of the green cross (the cursor turns to a circle), or type the values into the Joint Editor. What you want to do is move the green cross in line with the back of the lid. Then use the Xrotate dial to raise the lid. You may have to mess around to get it perfect, but it's not difficult. Once you've done all that, resave your figure (in Characters, remember) with it's new joints and it's done. You can also turn it sideways to have an upright box with opening door. The box will accept simple textures because the poser boxes are already texture-mapped, so you don't need to bother mapping it. If you have uv mapper (free - www.uvmapper.com), you can make more complex maps, or even assign different materials to each side of the box. Whew! OK. Those are the basic steps. It sounds a lot written out like this, but it's actually very easy once you've done it a few times. And from there on, you can get into more complicated things. Any poser props can be combined to make interesting things if you take the time to learn the basic steps. Also, try www.anim8or.com for a great, free 3d model maker. I use it almost every day for making morphs for furniture and things. It's very useful. Steve Shanks had a good tutorial on morph-making in anim8or. Sorry for the long rant. I keep meaning to put all this into a simple tutorial, but I never have time. #reply ends here. ---------------------------------- As you can see from the above, someone wanted to make a figure from existing poser props. With your own props, just substitiute the various parts for the poser boxes, export and make a PHI file. It's easy and worth learning. mac

Could I use this box to make a poseable door in a prop that has a non-posable door? I'm thinking line it up with the entry-- don't mind having two doors on either end of the box. Do that PHI business-- still trying to understand but I've gotten my mind around worse:))-- then retexture to match the original door????? Emily

It depends on the prop, queri. If there's a way to separate the various pieces into main prop/door/whatever, then it can be done. Just export the pieces one at a time and follow the rest of the steps to make it posable. What you can try is using the grouping tool to separate the prop into 2 or 3 pieces. My memory's a bit hazy on the grouping tool, but there are quite a few tutes on using it. Alternately, if you have uv mapper, you might be able to separate the pieces in it, either by material or by just messing around selecting them. mac PS If you're desparate, send it to me and I should be able to split it up maclean@libero.it