Does anyone know of a technique that allows you to arrange some small props around a prop without geometry (i.e. it is invisble) in such a way that resizing the invisible figure alters the distances between the props without altering their size. For instance, if I were to have a circle of prop and I wanted to make the circle broader but keep the actual props the same size, is there a way to parent the props to this invisible thing to allow such behavior? I've tried parenting to a prop and a figure all with the same results (scaling the top level parent scales the children) Perhaps ERC is the way to go? eric

Attached Link: http://64.38.105.73/erc_download.html

Yes, ERC. You'll need to link the X and Z channels of each prop as slaves to a master in the figure. Getting the right proportions might be a bit tricky. I suggest you get VK's ERC tutorials and read them. He deals with fairly complex movements and has a lot of cool ways to calculate things like this. Link above. mac

PS Another way to do this would be with a pseudo-morph, although it may not be quite as flexible. You'd have to move each prop outwards by a set distance, export it and re-import it as an MT to the original prop. That gives you the correct direction without having to calculate anything. Then you link all the MTs to the master channel in the figure and set the max MT limit to whatever you want. mac

You don't need to use ERC. To create the prop you want: 1. Load a poser square prop and reasve it to a pallet as "MinPorp" 2. Open "MinProp.pp2" in a text editor. 3. Delete the two lines near the top that say: storageOffset 0 0.3487 0 objFileGeom 0 0 :Runtime:Geometries:props:square.obj 4. scrole to the end of the file and undernieth "material Preview" delete everything between the curly braces. 5. Do a global search and replace of "propagatingScale" with "scale" (case sensitive). 6. Resave the file. Thats it! The "propagatingScale" or "scale" makes the diffrence between the childern scaling with the parent or not. You can also use the same technique with a minimal figue. This has advantages. When the figure is deleted all the props parented to it will be deleted also. When you resave the figure (with a diffrent name) props parented to it will be saved to the same cr2. You can have the option of scaling all the props at once, or not scaling the props, all within the same minimal figure. Props can suffer from Gimbol Lock, figures dont. So here is how to make a minimal figure: 1. Load a Poser square from the pallet. 2. Open the Hierarchie Editor, select the square and click the "Create New Figure" button. Lets name the figure "MinFig". 3. Delete the square prop from the Poser document and load MinFig. 4. Select the "Body" element of MinFig. 5. Open the "Joint Editor" (its in the Window menu), channge all the numbers to zero (this procedure puts the origin at the base of the BODY). Now select the body part "square_1" fron the dropdown menu at the bottom of the document window and zero these numbers also, then close the joint editor. 6. From the "Object" menu chose "Properties", un-tick (U.S. un-check) all the boxes and click OK. 7. Save MinFig back to the pallet. Thats it! Optionally you can open "MinFig.cr2" in a text editor and strip out the geometry and material refferences, or insert an external object reference, but the amount of geometry in a Poaser square is really quite small, so you can skip this step. Now you can parent your props to the square_1 body part of MinFig, if you scale up square_1 the props will move apart (without rescaling themselves), if you scale it down they will move apart. Note that this applies to scaling "square_1", if you scale the "Body" element the props will scale with it. If you don't like this behavior of the props scaling with the Body element, open MinFig in a text editor and do a global search and replace of "propagatingScale" with "scale", that will fix it. I think I will post some examples of minimal figures to the free stuff, but it may take me a day or two to get round to it.

Wow, that is exactly what I was looking for lesbently! What is even better, I still get the ability to resize the props and resize their placement! You made my day! One question, though: What is the Gimbol Lock you refer to? eric

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=878305

I made a typo, it's "gimbAl lock" not "gimbOl". Load a Poser cone (for example), z rotate it 90 degrees, now x rotate it, then y rotate it, you will notice that the x and y dials have the same effect, and that you have lost one axis of rotation, eg it is not posible to point the tip of the cone towards the camera whilst the zRot dial is at 90 degrees. See the link above for more info. Also the one below. http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1254391

Heh, heh. Nice one, les. You saved him a lot of hassle from following my advice. LOL. mac