To make a pose file that will turn parenting on or off? Basically Poser saves that info when it saves a prop as a smart prop. I was wondering if it might be possible to make a pose file that would parent or unparent a clothing item to a figure.

Say the chest of a shirt to the chest of the figure, or the hip of pants to the hip group of the figure. Or even force set up multiple parented groups so that every body group of the clothing item is parented to the corresponing body part of the figure.

Of course, that is almost the same as conforming, but I would think there would be a difference. At least there seems to be a difference in the way a parented object or clothing item interacts with the figure and a confromed item when you try manipulating it.

Just wondering if anyone has experimented with this idea and if so what results they found. No point my reinventing the wheel if someone else already established that Poser will not let you do this - or better, has found a way to make Poser do this and does not mind sharing that info.

Thanks,

Rob

You can use a pz2 to smartparent a prop to an actor in a figure. For example:

{
actor box_1
        {
        smartparent lShin
        }
}

Although this works for "smartparent" it does not seem to work for "parent". Note the use of "actor box_1" not "prop box_1". To remove parenting use: { actor box_1 { smartparent UNIVERSE } }

Thanks Les, I will play around with this. :O)

Unfortunatly I seem to remember that there is a bug associated with smartparenting a figure to another figure, if you try to delete either figure Poser 4 (I don't know about other versions) will crash.

Figures :o(

Les, you mentioned above actor versus prop - what is the purpose of using actor box_1 as opposed to using prop box_1 ? Reason I ask, is I have been using prop box_1 in my poses and they seem to work (at least so long as the figure remains figure 1 or whatever the :1 would indicate). Does using actor make it so that the pose will work on any figure loaded that the item is parented to? If not, is there a way to make a pose file so that I can have more than one instance of the figure and prop in the same scene, and use the pose files with smartparent command to parent the prop to the correctly selected figure. Hope I am making sense on what I am asking.

I should have explained this. If you declare the prop as an 'actor' instead of a 'prop' you can apply a pose to the prop even if it does not have a figure as a parent (but a figure must be present in the document). If you use 'prop' the prop must have a figure as its parent otherwise the pose will not affect it. In circumstances where you want to use a pose to parent something, odds are that it is not parented to a figure to start with, so the pose would not work unless you declare the prop as an 'actor' in the pz2. As to parenting a prop to diffrent figures, it seems that the prop will parent to what ever figure is selected at the time the pose is applied (the one who's name appears under the document window), provided that that figure has an actor who's name matches the smartparent statement in the pose file. If the selected figure does not contain the appropriate parent actor then I am unable to predict what will happen, but I suspect that the prop will parent to the actor of the correct name that has the lowest actor number (:#) in the document. Adding an actor number to the prop or parent name seems to have no effect;

{
actor box_1:2
        {
        smartparent hip:2
        }
}

Seems to work the same as; { actor box_1 { smartparent hip } }

Personly I tend to leave the actor numbers out. If you load multiple instances of the same prop each will have a diffrent name as Poser increments the prop number (_#) with each new instance loaded, e.g. prop_1, prop_2, prop_3, etc. The pose file must reference the prop by name, so to affect multiple instances of the prop with the same pz2 you would have to use multiple names in it; { actor box_1 { smartparent hip } actor box_2 { smartparent hip } actor box_3 { smartparent head } }

Shadownet, you say: "is there a way to make a pose file so that I can have more than one instance of the figure and prop in the same scene, and use the pose files with smartparent command to parent the prop to the correctly selected figure. Hope I am making sense on what I am asking." Sense, err...I'm not sure...hope I am interpriting you correctly. As I said earlier the prop(s) will parent to the selected figure, I don't know any reliable way to parent "prop_1" to "head:1", and "prop_2" to "head:2" from within one pose file. You could have individual pose files for each prop_#, then select each figure in turn and apply a diffrent pz2. Hope this helps. Cheers, Les.

Hi Les, Thanks, you have answered my question. I have been trying, unsuccessfully to do the parent "prop_1" to head:1, prop_2 to head:2, etc., with no luck. Also, thanks for clearing up the actor versus prop. I was finding that using prop worked better for me than using actor for these particular pose files, and your explanation shows me why. Much appreciated as always. :O)