Hi, the gun is an MDP figure. It has a body part called right hand which is parented to the hand of the girl. There is a prop which is parented to part of the figure (right hand) which is held in the girl's left hand. Now it took me awhile to pose the girl's left hand to hold the handle. I would love to be able to keep the right hand and the left hand holding the gun but change the pose of the girl. However unless i lock the whole arms and collars of the girl I can't do that. If I try to reparent the part of the gun to the left hand of the girl, that part simply disappears. I'm sure there must be a way of doing this, but I don't know how. I hope I've adequately explained the problem I'm fairly new to poser. LOve esther

Instead of parenting the weapon to the left hand, parent the left hand to the weapon, that way the left hand should follow the gun around. It works best if the gun has two parts that can't be selected individually. For instance, grip and foregrip or (in this case) magazine/clip. Parent the hand to that, lock the hand pose and it should retain it's position enough that you only need small tweaks to make it look ok. Alternatively what might work if you have seperately parented props. Is leave the right hand parented to the grip, parent the left hand to the secondary prop and parent that prop to the gun. It sounds odd but it can work in some cases.

***two parts that can't be selected *** Oh, for an edit button. can't should be can. sigh

Hi Questor, thank you so much for writing back to me! Well if anyone knows about weapons and how to make a figure hold them, then you do. I didn't know the hand could be parented as I though figures can't be parented to anything. It sounds good in theory though. I'll try it and let you know. Love esther ps I don't know if it makes any difference but I'm using poser 5.

I selected left hand of the figure. The properties menue wouldn't let me parent it, but then I went to the figure menu and it said "set figure parent" and I chose the prop part of the gun that is already parented to the "right hand" part of the gun, but when I clicked on it, the gun jumped out of her hands and went to her hip and the hip became the selected body part. Love esther

hope this helps explain

If you use inverse kinematics on the arms then the hands should stay in the same place.

Oh, that sounds exciting. Do I need to lock the hand and fingers first? Love esther

I just tried it without any locking ( but I don't think that would have helped). the right arm flew up in the air still holding the gun. The left hand no longer has the handle of the gun. I just used IK on the hands not on the arms as there isn't a menu choice at the top for IK of arms. Love esther

I just tried IK on the left hand only. Locked both hands and fingers, and I think it might be going to work. I'll keep you posted. Love esther

No, it hasn't worked. As soon as I moved either arm she let go with her left hand. Not a smart thing to do in the heat of battle. Love esther

Try it without locking the hands.

Okay, I unlocked the left hand, but when I moved her left forearm the left hand let go of the gun again. Love esther

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1645097

The answer might be in this thread, near the end. Good luck.

Hey! I just tried it and it works fine. In fact, the prop figure didn't even have to have two parts (as mentioned in the linked thread). Here's what I did: 1) Put the prop figure in the hands of the character. 2) Turn IK on for both hands of the character. 3) In the Hierarchy Editor window, drug both hands under the Body of the prop figure. That's it. Now when I move the body of the prop figure, the character's left and right hands and arms move with it. Thanks to Geep and Numanoid.

Sorry Estherau first chance I had to get back here, looks like Jackson got the solution for you. It takes a bit of fiddling around but you can get the hands to stay with the prop.

I'll try today and let you know. Love esther

When I turn on IK hands, the gun jumps out of her left hand. Should I just manually repose and then see if they all move together? that could take awhile. Here's how my heirachy window looks. Love esther

This is what happens after I turn on IK for right hand. Moving those trans dials of the right hand part of the gun part (which I think is equivalent to th hip of other figures) makes the gun move out of her right hand as well. Love esther

that's right hand of the figure person, not the gun. That right hand you can see in at the bottom of the pic is the name for the gun part which I think is equivalent to hip, ie that's the part where you normally move the gun around with. However once I turn on IK on the person, then the gun doesn't even stick to her right hand when I move the gun. Love Esther

Fascinating, that shouldn't be happening. The logic of the parenting is that everything should be centred to the right hand and when you move that, all other parented items will follow it. Logical progression should be right hand -> first prop part -> second prop part -> left hand. This should cause the prop to follow the right hand, the second prop part to follow this and the left hand to follow the second parented prop. Exception being in the case of (cr2) props with two defined body parts where the hands would be parented to the prop itself. This results (when IK is on) in the hands/arms following the prop when it is moved. Makes posing a bit more tricky but it works. I'm not entirely certain why the hand on your figure is flying off into the air like that, not having Poser 5 means I can't replicate this and track what's going on. The logic of the parenting process should be the same, the basic architecture of Poser 5 is no different to P4 so it should work. The link Jackson posted does work as I tried it last night though it's a bit more involved when posing the character as it centres on the prop rather than a body part. Sorry Estherau, bit stumped here.

Oh well, thanks for trying. I think part of the problem is that the gun is a figure not a prop maybe. I really don't know. I don't suppose you have that gun do you Questor? If so maybe you could try it out and see what's going wrong. As you say, it shouldn't be much different for poser 4 and poser 5. I've probably done something really really silly. Love esther

Turning IK on for the hands (or arms in P4 figures) then parenting both hands to the prop usually works reasonably well. I think the problems you are having are probably because the gun is a figure, not a prop, this seems to introduce a lot of complications. I would sugest that you try exporting the gun as a Wavefront Object (.obj) file, then reimport the obj and save it to a props pallet. I think you will then be able to parent the hands to it without them flying off somwhere.

hmmm... I tried it with both a prop and a figure and didn't have this trouble. Maybe it has something to do what you do first. Try this esther: do the posing first (post the character, put the prop where it belongs). Then turn the IK on; then do the parenting. This was the order in which I did things and everything worked fine.

Esther, it is better if the object is a figure. When moving the gun, use the body of the gun, and not an individual part. You must turn on IK before parenting. Also, check where the centre of the part is that you are parenting to (> window > joint editor). It should be in the centre of the part, or you may get odd movements when you move the objects. I have done this very succesfully with the M41A Assault Rifle and it worked perfectly. In the readme for the M41A is a step by step guide of how to do this, the way I did, and it works.

Hi, well the only way to move the gun I've found is to click on the gunpart called right hand - having it set on body doesn't allow the trans dials to work. But maybe I need to set it all up all over again. How to I turn on IK before parenting when the gun seems to be smart propped to the right hand? I'll have another look at the readme, but I don't remember my readme from MDP (mask) being all that detailed. I'll recheck. He did email me to try and help but he's worried that his english isn't good enough to understand my problem. I can't play with poser until thursday now, so I'm going to try again starting from scratch and I'll let you know. If you want to email me the instructions I'm at esther@titaninternet.com.au Love esther

Is the gun conformed to your character? Maybe that's what's causing the problems. Try not conforming it.

Yes it's conforming. Okay I'll try not conforming. Hadn't though of that. Good point! Love esther