i dont know how to fix this, when i used vicki in lightwave to size the model to her it was fine, but now in poser she looks like she is playing a scene from jack and the bean stalk! if i move the model down then the chandalier cracks her on the head. how do i fix this?

from inside

on the top step of the back door

Poser, from what I understand (I'm no expert), doesn't use the same scaling conventions as other 3D programs, and this can lead to problems importing and exporting figures from and to other applications. Are you exporting as an .obj file from LW to Poser? There is a free utility called OBJaction Mover, in free stuff I think, which should help fix problems like this. Otherwise it looks like you're stuck with reducing your prop size by 50% in Poser and resaving it to the props library. Or I suppose you could blow Vicki up to 200% but I don't know whether any conformed figures or parented props would scale with her.

i got it i think, instead of resizing the whole room i just resized the doors. seems to look much better that way and i still have my lamp inside high enough it doesnt crack her on the head. so from the outside and inside the doors are normal size but the room area inside is huge instead. this was supposed to be a room for inside a castle so when i modeled it i modeled it to be high ceiling. although i made the castle and cant get the room inside it...lol so the person i made the castle for said to just go ahead and sell the room on my own. it has alot of options with it, 36 props, 10 figures and 20 mat poses. think maybe i should make lights and camera with it? i never know to do that or not, as when i buy products i rarely use those settings.

oh and yes its obj saved lightwave to poser. i was thinking to just redo it in poser, but then it dawned on me that the most part are figures instead of props. i havent learned yet if its possible to have the doors open when they are props, plus i needed to parent the moldings to the walls. you never know some people may want to move the room instead of the camera.

I don't tend to buy many sets (I'm a cheapskate LOL) but any freebie ones I get, I rarely use the camera sets, although I might use the lighting. I haven't got into the wonderful world of figure modelling yet, just some very simple props. I need to find some good tuts on making figures...

LadyB, I don't mean to be a downer, but this product doesn't seem like it's quite ready for sale yet. If I were you, I'd try to get it into better shape first. It looks good, so I think it would be worth taking the time to fix it up. What you should really do is have the room as a cr2 figure with the doors, ceiling, lamps and other pieces as body parts of that figure. That way the doors are part of the figure and can be opened/closed, plus the entire room can be moved, scaled, etc, as one piece, and also saved as one, without odd props floating around. Plus, you need to get it correctly scaled first. When you bring an obj into poser, you need to use the import dialog option 'percentage of figure size' to scale correctly. This is one of poser's weakest points, but it's the only way to do it. As far as lights/cameras go, that would depend on the price, I think. If you need any help at all with this, just shout. Or mail me at maclean@libero.it and I'll try to help out. mac

ya i have the front and back walls mainly set as figures because the doors have been made to open and close, i used the setup room in propack to do that. i also have three different types of moldings for this room, reason why the walls are all made to be added on in parts. i also have two different types of front entry moldings. maybe i made to much for it, i just get into a modeling mood and keep going. sorta what happened to my kitchen pack in my store..heh. well when i import the obj files i unclick everything for poser. so it loads at the size it was made in lightwave. this is the way i was taught to do them, but also it was for props, not rooms. i did rescale the doors in lightwave, here are some pictures untextured now of course of the front entry and moldings i was speaking of. i know one of them needs to be fixed, i dont know what happend there though to look off than its other side. i mean i been in houses before that had huge rooms on the inside, but does this look right? this is just imported into poser, all settings unchecked.

room

2

oh also its made so that its a construction set, i figured that would be easier for most newbies to poser to use. all the parts fall where they go though, i guess inorder to resize the whole thing at once it has to be one whole figure. i am wandering how other people do thier rooms like construction sets, for people that want to resize them.

LadyBea32, what's wrong with just scaling the room in Poser? After rescaling you could save out a new set of scaled obj's exported from Poser. I agree with maclean that you should try to fix the scaling before selling this room. If you use "propagatingScale" instead of "scale" in all the scaling channels of the actors and props, and parent all the props to the cr2, then everything should scale when you scale the BODY. The origen of the floor and BODY (I'm assuming the floor is part of the figure) should be zero so that the floor will not move up or down when the BODY is scaled. As the doors only need to rotateY all the other translation and rotation channels for them should be hidden and locked (or deleted completly), renaming yrot to "Open" is a nice touch for doors. As long as you do the above, I see no reason why you should need to make the doors and other props part of the figure. In fact I usually prefer using props in these situations. I find it makes the construction of the room easier and quicker, and the modular nature makes it easy to replace thigs like doors and light fittings with diffrent versions, and allows people to easily use the fittings in diffrent sets. Lights and cameras, why not? They are easy enough to add. I would sugest you use unique internal names for any lights and cameras. I would be very annoyed if I loaded a set and it over wrote cameras and lights that I had spent time setting up.

what is internal names for cameras andlights? im not familiar enough with these things yet. ok so if i make the doors props, then can i still set them up in the set up room to rotate open the correct way? i ask cause if i dont move the joints over to the end of the door, they open from the center. ok for the walls them self i have them set up as such, front, back, three side walls each side left and right, i have two different kinds of windows and one no window wall, picture of what i mean. so i cant really make this a full figure cause there are other side walls involved. also thanks, i never new i could just size the body of the whole room and the smart props would follow. :)

Just about every element in Poser, whether it be an actor, prop, camera, channel, or what ever, has an internal name. For example in the case of a rotateY channel the internal name is usually "yrot", though it can be anything you like. The first part of a channel is a line that containes two elements, a channel type which tells poser what the channel does followed by a channel name. Then somewhere under that is the "name" line which determins the name displayed on the channels dial. You can make an arbitary choice of channel name and dial name, but you should not change the channel type.

                rotateY yrot -channel type and name
                        {
                        name My name for this dial -Dial name

Actors, props, lights, and cameras, also have internal names. For example a light might have the internal name "LIGHT3", you can change this name if you want, but be sure to change EVERY occurence if the name in the file, just do a global search and replace of "LIGHT3" with "MyLight 747", for example.

light LIGHT3
        {
        storageOffset 0 0.3487 0
        geomResource 7  
        lightType 0 
        name    Light 3

I don't know anything about the "set up room" as Poser 4 does not have one (I use a text editor or CR2Builder), but there is no problem with using props in this situation. The main point in making a door is to move the origen of the door prop to to lign up with the door hinge, do this before translating the door or parenting it to the figure. This can be done in the Poser interface, select the prop, then from the menu bar do; Object>Properties>Display Origen, new dials will appear in the paramitrs pallet, and cross hairs on the prop, align the origen, test the yRot, then hide the origen again.

It also looks as though it isn't scaled proportionately. It looks squashed as well as too large overall... the doors and windows are much too wide for their height.

Attached Link: English bob's tutorials

I would also sugest you check out English Bob's tutorial on "Tiling texture maps in Poser" it is a very handy technique when making architextural props.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most important point in architextural sets, each wall should be a seperate actor or prop, this is so that a canera can be positioned outside the set, and a wall hidden or moved to allow the camera to see into the room. Sometimes a room is made as all one peice, this forces you to place the camera in the room and use a very short focal length, unless the room is really huge.

LadyB, Well, you've certainly put a lot of work into it. So it's definitely worth getting it right before you sell it. If you importing from LW at a preset size, that works OK. But obviously, you need to check your settings, since the size is too big. If you can do it that way, it's easier than messing around with the poser options. Or you can scale it down by BODY, as les says, then re-export/import the obj to give you zeroed dial values (otherwise the user will have scale dials which are not set to 100%). Judging by pic #10, your room height is about 3 times figure height, or 18 feet high. This should be a maximum of 11 or 12 feet for a large room. It looks as though you need to scale it down by at least 1/3. Sorry, but I know nothing about the setup room either. I use cr2Edit or notepad. mac PS les - I assume when you say 'internal name' you're referring to the 'poser interface name' (for want of a better term), and not the getStringRes name. At least, I hope you are. LOL.

LadyB, Here's a fast way to check size and scale in poser. Open up the poser Box Prop and set it's scale to 1000%. This makes it exactly 8 feet or 96 inches. By using the Front camera, which is the only reliable one because it can't tilt, you can check your wall height against the box. For example, if you want your wall to be 12 feet high, scale the box to 1500% and match the wall scale to the box. The percentage to feet/inches can also be calculated to tell you what height an object is. If you scale the box to the height of the wall and it's 2100%, divide 2100 by 125 to get the size in feet. (125% = 1 foot or 12 inches) mac

lesb, your lighting setting i think i know what your talking about but if its for a text editor program i wont do it. i have enough major problems just getting my figures to know where the obj files are sitting. i think i well leave all this camera and lighting stuff to people that know it better. far as the room i am going to guess you didnt understand #14 correctly. ever part of this room are a seperated peice except the door, but those are put into the walls to make a figure, and can be made invisible if need be. Mac, im sorry but im confused there. i think at this point i am going to just trash this room. its apperent that if i have to use a text ediotor to size this room to fit daz or poser characters its not worth it. or just use the room for myself. :/ i think in the mist of all this im getting more and more confused. i have lots of scenes for poser, and sure when i load the most of them up, they "ALL" either load to small or to large. so really i dont have a clue what people want, big or small. or i could just make it all one figure with no choices in wall molding or front entry molding. sorry all, but the more we go with these different setting to more confused i get. its much easier to set props to the correct height than it is a whole room. i mean i guess i have to make everything to exactly her arm length, her body height and a smidgen depth to make this room look more pleasing.

Mac, by internal name I mean the second word in the first line of a channel, actor, or prop, etc, as indicated in the postes above. In other words the name used internally by Poser to distinguish these things, as opposed to the dial name which occurs in the 'name' line. As to determining the height of a wall, you could also use the (shameless plug) Ultimate Callipers, available in the Free Stuff, which will give you the height to the nearest 64th of an inch, or 100th of a millimeter, without the need of any mental arithmetic :)

No, no, you don't have to use a text editor to resize the room. There are a lot of diiffrent ways it could be done, none of them involve a text editor. I'm sure it could be rescaled in LightWave, but I don't have LightWave so can't say how. The crux of the problem is that you need to rescale the objects, once the obj's are rescaled they should still work in your original cr2. There are lots of ways to rescale objects, and it should not matter which way you use. I would do it like this: Backup your original obj's. Load the cr2 into Poser, rescale the BODY to the appropriate size. Export each of the objects one at a time using the Export option in the File menu, save them to a tempory folder using exactly the same names as the original objects. Close poser, then replace your original objects with the new ones by copying them to the same directory. Another way would be to determin how much you need to scale the objects in Poser, then download the free utility "Objaction Scaler" and use that to rescale the original objects.

aha that is what i was looking for ojaction scaler. although eh i dont still dont know what the proper size is for posers figures. :( until i figure out what that is, and unfortunatley everyone has their way of wanting thier sizes, i probably well never get done. i mean, how do you scale something to be able to rescale it and still have options available, i dont see a way around that.

Not sure I understand what your asking here. The proper size for the default Poser figures is the size they have when they load in Poser, or any other application for that matter. If your talking about a conversion factor between Poser and some other application that depends on what the other application is. A Poser box prop is 0.1 cubic Poser units so if you import a box prop into another application you have a mesure of 0.1 Poser units in that application. A Poser box scaled to 1000% measures one Poser unit along each side so if you exported that from Poser, and then imported it into another application you would have a measure of one Poser unit. A Poser box prop scaled to 0.125 is generally taken to be equivalant to one real world cubic foot, so if you export that and import it into another app you have a measure of one foot. You can of course do the reverse and export a prop of a known size from another application, then import it into Poser. For instance if you export somthing that LightWave thinks is one foot tall, then import it into Poser, you can rescale it untill it is the same hight as a Poser box prop scaled to 0.125. Whatever amount you had to scale this LightWave prop should be the same amount you have to scale any LightWave prop.

LadyB, Les is right. Don't give up yet. All you need to do is fix the scale and the room wil be fine. It doesn't need to be mathematically correct. Just close enough to look real. To change the internal name of anything in poser, just go to Properties (double-click the object or use ctrl-i) and change the name in the dialog box. That's all. Les - I call the getStringRes name the 'internal', because it's internal to the cr2. That's why I was wondering. mac

ok i think what i well do is scale everything but using the new doors i made instead of the old. reason being is they are more to the right size. but if all else fails i can just resize everything in lightwave and go from there. :(

Sorry Mac but your wrong, you can't change the internal name the way you say in post #28, that just changes the dispaly name. I know you are using "internal name" in a diffrent sence to me, but "internal name" and "dial name", "menu name", and "display name" (which is the super set of dial name, menu name, and figure name) have long established usage in the Poser vocabulary, and very precise meanings. LadyBea, your almost there, don't faulter at the last hurdle.

Yes les, that's what I meant. But I was using internal name in YOUR sense, not mine. You said 'Just about every element in Poser, whether it be an actor, prop, camera, channel, or what ever, has an internal name. For example in the case of a rotateY channel the internal name is usually "yrot", though it can be anything you like' AFAIK, the internal name for yrot is getStringRes 1028,24 and the display name is yrot (the one you can change in poser) Still, I think we're saying the same thing. Correct me if I'm wrong below. Display name/menu name = the name users see in poser. This could be the name of a figure, body part or prop. Dial name = parameter dial name. Can be changed by double-clicking the dial. The cr2 still retains the original dial or morph name. Internal name = the name poser uses in the cr2 for dials, morphs and body parts (for obj ref). This name is NOT displayed in poser and can only be changed in the cr2. mac

The displayed name is never used by Poser for anything, it is just used to DISPLAY something to the user. Changing the displayed name will not affect how the file operates in any way, changing the internal name will. The name that Poser its self uses INTERNALLY is the one in the first line of the actor, channel, or what ever. Because this name is used internally within the application to make decisions it is called the "INTERNAL name". The displayed name for an 'element' such as an actor or prop can be changed from within the Poser interface via its Properties box, or via a pose file. The internal name can only be changed by editing the file outside of Poser 4, e.g. with a text editor. getStringRes is just a trick that Poser uses to pull display names out of a database so that the names will display in the appropriate language for the user, it has no other function that I know of, and if it were not for the diffrent language versions it would not be needed, a plain text string would suffice.

OK les, we are talking about the same thing. I know that getStringRes is just for the different languages and stuff. But what I want to know is why'd you advise LadyB to change the internal name for lights? I can't think of a reason to give lights a new internal name, but if there is one, I'd like to know before I finish up my pack. All my lights have unique display names, but the internals are untouched. Is there something I should know? cheers mac

Hiya Bea, Send the LW model over to me and I'll take a look at it here, see if I can work out why it's going wrong during the export from LW to Poser, I'll set it up the way I do for the 'Expansion' stuff in Poser then send the whole lot back so you can study it. speak to you soon Hon Billy

Mac, I gave the reason in post #13 "I would be very annoyed if I loaded a set and it over wrote cameras and lights that I had spent time setting up." Say I have a light in my document with the internal name "LIGHT1" that I have set up a particular way, for a particular reason. Say you include a light in your cr2 that also has the internal name "LIGHT1", your light will overwright my light, in effect it will re-pose it. Perhaps some people don't mind this hapening, but I would rather it did not. On the other hand, if you give your light a unique internal name name, say "MacLight 1" it will not overwrite any of my existing lights, it will just add a new light to the document. Same thing applys to cameras. If you supply lights as a seperate lt2 file it does not matter, as I have the option to load it or ignor it, but if you put lights in a cr2 or pp2 I feel they should have unique internal names

Hi Bea, Here's a screencap (top image) I did of your LW room with a Vickie mesh I have for converting some stuff for her, it looks like the figure you imported into LW was the problem, it must have been scaled up a good bit, the one I've used here is exported with no world transformations, your best bet is to rescale the whole thing in LW, select all the layers and press (shift) 'H', then press 'N' for the numeric window, (I know you probably already know this, it's just a habit I've gotten into when I'm explaining stuff), and set the scaling factor to about 55%, then press the apply button, you'll end up with something about the same as the middle image. if this is too much, just alter the scaling factor. I understand this will mean you'll have ro redo the whole thing in Poser, but I think you'll find it easier than trying to rescale everything in Poser itself.

If it's just the doors you need to scale, then select just the layers with the doors and the wall they're attached too, then in points mode select all the doors and just the surrounding parts of the door in the wall, you can then use the stretch tool, just 'H' on the keyboard, and using the numeric window just scale these parts down along the Z axis to around 55% to 60% (bottom image), this should stop the chandelier from hitting Vic on the head lol. if this is what you need and you've already set up the room as a figure, you can import just the altered parts and using the replace body part with object command in Poser just swap the old parts for these newer ones.

Hope this all makes sense and is of some help to you, I'll still send over what I've done here so you can have a look at the files yourself.

Billy

hope this is of some help

One thing I forgot to mention was, at the bottom of the LW screen you've got a load ofbuttons, point, polygon, etc, one is called Modes, you'll need to change a setting in this to (Action Center: Mouse), or press sghift and F5, which does the same thing I think, you'll have to do this or the chances are the scaling will happen from the center of the selection, when you've selected the stuff you need to rescale, click the mouse once around the center of the model, but at floor level, probably at the bottom of the doors where the 2 meet, this will make the objects scale with this as the origin point. Billy

omg billy thank you so much, i think i would have trashed it if i couldnt of gotten a hold of you. this works perfect for the scaling you told me in #36. and i didnt know or even think about scaling that way. i thought i was going to have to redo the whole thing. the action center:mouse i did though though...hehe. it wasnt that my v2 figure got rescaled it was the buildings scaling to begin with. when i first started the room it was to be for a castle room so course the ceiling would have been higher up. but then i ended up making a keep instead...rofl. not that i know what that is but oh well. i am going to save this so i can always go back and look at it. i have a building that needs resizing also...hehe.

Glad you got it fixed, LadyB. And well done, Billy. There's always someone around who'll help out. les, OK. Now I understand your reason for wanting internal names changed. But I would never add lights to anything other than a light file. I know they can be added as cr2s, pp2s, pz3s, etc, but to me, that's just asking for trouble. If it's an lt2 file, the user will expect they're lights to be overwritten, so they have fair warning. mac

thank you mac i am with mac les, i only do lights for lights, and actually i didnt know you could do it for other than that. but im not messing with internal names either