Hi, Sometimes an essentially "inanimate" posable prop is distributed as a character... why is this? I want to make a prop of a body part by trimming the .obj and .cr2 of a character but what I m left with is still a .cr2 --how can I convert this to a prop for attaching to other characters etc.? Also, the link in the Tutorials Forum to the tutorial on hiding parmeter dials in P4 is busted... anyone no where I could find info on this? I have a P4 head loaded with many morphs it would be neat if I could show eyes then nose then mouth dials seperatly... is that possible? Thanks!

There are a couple of good reasons for using the CR2 form, even with inanimate things like a chair or an egg. 1. When a multipart thing is written as PP2, it can't be deleted all at once. The user has to delete each part separately, which sometimes causes problems with parenting and is a lot of trouble in any case. 2. Scaling is more certain with a CR2. When you change the BODY's scale, everything else changes properly. There are ways to make this happen in a PP2, by editing Scale statements to propagatingScale, but that still isn't very good, because: 3. A PP2 has no real "handle" or "center". With a CR2, you know without any doubt that the BODY is the part you grab when you want to move or scale, but with a PP2, unless you look at the hierarchy, you don't know which is the controlling part.

I might add: If your prop actually consists of just -one- piece, with no parenting or anything, then it makes sense to package it as PP2. The overhead of a CR2 file is heavy.

heyas; if the cr2 is pointing to an obj, just import that obj and save it to the props library. if it isn't.... then, export it as one, and import it and stick it in the props library. :) if it has morphs... that could get tricky. oh yes, hiding parameter dials. just go into the pertinant dial channel and change the hidden 0 to hidden 1. (er, you know which ones are which, right?)

Just load the CR2-file into Wordpad or any other Editor and save the file with the extension PP2. As example for test.cr2 you have to save it: "test.pp2" Then you can use the prop the way as it is a normal CR2-file. Also conforming clothes can that way saved as a PP2-file and then just parent it to the figure and they conform. I tryed this in Poser4 and it worked well.

Learn something new everyday. is there more info on fiddling with the "hide Parameters" controls?

Hiding parameter dials: 1. Right-click your cr2 and choose 'open with...' = notepad. 2. Do a search for the name of the body part you want, using the phrase 'actor bodypartname', then find the line 'channels'. Like this... actor door:4 { name door off bend 0 dynamicsLock 0 hidden 0 addToMenu 1 castsShadow 1 includeInDepthCue 1 parent frame:4 channels 3. Channels lists all the dials and their functions. Here's the Xrotate dial... rotateX xrot { name xrot initValue 0 hidden 0 forceLimits 4 min 0 max 0 trackingScale 1 keys { static 0 k 0 0 } interpStyleLocked 0 } 4. The line that says 'hidden 0' means that the dial is NOT hidden. If you want to hide it, change 0 to 1, so it reads 'hidden 1'. 0 (zero) = on, or unhidden, and 1 (one) = off, or hidden. 5. Save the cr2 again, using the option 'all files' (not .txt), and save it with the extension .cr2. It's better to save it under a new name until you're sure you know what you're doing. 6. Open poser and find the cr2 in the library. It will not have a thumb, just the little shrugging guy. Check the parameter dials for that body part and the dial you modified should be hidden/unhidden. There are reasons to hide/unhide dials. For example, DAZ has a (to me) very annoying habit of hiding all the dials they think are unnecessary in their freebies. Well, maybe you want to rotate or move a body part and there's no dial. Just unhide it. What you do NOT want to do is mess with the Offset dials. They are meant to be hidden because when you open the joint editor it will automatically unhide them when you make alterations. This is one good reason for not doing a mass 'search and replace' for 'hidden 1' to 'hidden 0'. That would unhide the Offsets too. mac