Well, I was feeling quite pleased with myself because I made a concertina-type sliding door in max that works really well. It works with a morph, and took me a while to get the right combination of rotations, but I cracked it. So then I thought "Could this be done in Poser too?". I tried it, and it can, so that's why I'm posting this. If you're feeling adventurous, and want to try something new, here's the scoop.

All you need is the normal poser box prop and a bit of patience. It should take you all of 10 minutes. One thing to note. I strongly advise typing values into the parameter box, NOT moving or rotating by hand. It's never accurate enough. Here we go. . .

(In the image I've posted, the poser boxes are placed next to another door. This is only for comparison purposes).

Open the poser box prop and set these values.

Xscale = 52%
Yscale = 850%
Zscale = 5%.

Move box 1 to the position and rotation listed below (Yrot = -20 / Xtrans = -0.200), then press ctrl-c to copy it.

From now on, it's just a question of opening another 8 boxes, one at a time and setting the values listed below. When you open box 2, press ctrl-v to paste the scale values from box 1, then reset the rotation and trans values to the ones below. You'll notice that each alternate box either has a rotation value of -20 or 20, and that the trans positions are in increments of 0.050.

Tips

You might want to give the boxes a color that stands out from the background. I made mine gray (on a white bkg).
Use the Top camera to check everything moves to the right place.
Remember that when you paste values, the box will be hidden underneath one of the other boxes until you set the correct rot/trans.
After copying box 1 and pasting box 2, copy box 1 again, then paste box 3. All you need to change is the trans value. Then copy box 2, and paste box 4, again changing the trans value. And so on, up to box 9.
It's a good idea to save this in 2 .pz3 files. Save this part as one, then resave it as a new one when you start the second part (after exporting).

Box 1 = Yrot = -20 / Xtrans = -0.200
Box 2 = Yrot = 20 / Xtrans = -0.150
Box 3 = Yrot = -20 / Xtrans = -0.100
Box 4 = Yrot = 20 / Xtrans = -0.050
Box 5 = Yrot = -20 / Xtrans = -0.000
Box 6 = Yrot = 20 / Xtrans = -0.050
Box 7 = Yrot = -20 / Xtrans = -0.100
Box 8 = Yrot = 20 / Xtrans = -0.150
Box 9 = Yrot = -20 / Xtrans = -0.200

At this point, you should have 9 poser boxes which look like the image above (2nd top left). All you need to do is export all the boxes as 1 obj file. Go to Menu/File/Export/Wavefront OBJ (alt-f-e-w) and in the hierarchy box that opens, make sure the 9 boxes are checked (and the ground isn't!). Give it a name - 'doorclosed' or something. In the next dialog box, uncheck ALL options and click OK. That's your door done.

Now you need to make the morph obj to open it. Easy. Start with box 1 (save this part as a new .pz3 file), and set the new rot/trans values below for each box.

Box 1 = Yrot = -90 / Xtrans = -0.223
Box 2 = Yrot = 90 / Xtrans = -0.218
Box 3 = Yrot = -90 / Xtrans = -0.213
Box 4 = Yrot = 90 / Xtrans = -0.208
Box 5 = Yrot = -90 / Xtrans = -0.203
Box 6 = Yrot = 90 / Xtrans = -0.198
Box 7 = Yrot = -90 / Xtrans = -0.193
Box 8 = Yrot = 90 / Xtrans = -0.188
Box 9 = Yrot = -90 / Xtrans = -0.183

Now you have all 9 boxes stacked together on the left. These need to be exported too. Same procedure as above. Export, name it 'dooropen', and uncheck ALL options. Nearly finished now.

Import your 'doorclosed.obj' by going to Menu/File/Import/Wavefront OBJ (alt-f-i-w), and again, uncheck ALL options. Select the door prop and press ctrl-i for properties. Click on 'add morph target' and browse to find the 'dooropen.obj'. Give it a name (open/close is a popular choice). Now - before you try it - double-click the morph dial (in the parameters list) and set these limits - Min = 0 / Max = 1 - otherwise it'll go mad when you turn the dial. It should now open and close, concertina, slide and everything else you've ever wanted a door to do. Right? Good. Now save it to the library as a prop.

That's it, folks. Now I know it doesn't have a frame or anything, but with your ingenuity and new knowledge of what you can do with poser boxes, I'm sure you can whip one up no problem. Any questions? See me after class.

mac

PS If anyone could be bothered doing this and putting it into proper tutorial form with nice little pics, I'd appreciate it. I'm too busy/lazy.
PPS If you're interested in sizes, here they are - Height = 81.6 inches / Width = 38.4 inches
PPPS I'm not trying to out-geep dr geep or anything.

Here's the one I made in max as a comparison. Slightly more stylish, but there ya go. mac

Love mini-tuts! Thank you for sharing your sliding door. Looks pretty darn good to me. :)

Nice work, Maclean. It helps show Poser's capabilities as more than a portrait tool. Thanks - I'm gonna try it.

I've always thought Poser didn't need to be restricted to portraits. People like to use it that way, but I never have. Look to Dr. Geep's tutorials and Maclean's and others, and you see there is a lot of potential that many people haven't tapped into.