... and they're just sitting there on your archive CDs gathering dust because you dont think you can use them anymore. As some of you may have seen on other web sites, like PoserPros, I've been going through a whole Ichiro phase these days, taking older props and costumes and, without using Tailor or Clothing Converter, just the dials and a lot of patience, I've managed to build up quite the wardrobe for this little guy, with looks for everything from sci-fi to medieval fantasy stuff (One of my favs is a rework of John Malis's old Paladin character -- the refit of the armour, in tandem with some new texture work, looks flat out incredible, like he was born for it). And best of all, all of it's free from places like animotions and even here at Rsity. Like this image -- it uses a *P3* motorcycle jacket from an old animotions character. The initial "conform to" gave it a reasonably decent fit, but when I played with the Y and Z settings on the chest and abdomen areas, the shoulders dropped into place like they were meant for him. I then adjusted the Y and X settings on the sleeves to get them to match up to the length of the segments of his arms, then saved it as a new cr2. I mean, it's not a difficult process, of course, but with all the stuff out there that we feel we can't use because it doesn't fit V3 or David, I think we might be surprised what can be "recycled" and made anew. Oh, and I have yet to use magnets to get this stuff to fit. I know almost nothing about magnets, so it's by necessity that I restrict myself to the dials. :) One other technique that's given surprisingly good results is to export, say, a suit of armour, but export it as all separate pieces -- then reimport them one at a time, parent them to the required body part, position and rescale for optimal fit, then lock. I have three new scifi suits for Ichi that were made this way, and they all pose beautifully. Just an FYI, folks, a technique you might find useful sometime.

You didn't mention it. But another little trick is to make body parts that should be covered up invisible. I do this a lot on clothing that's actually made for the character. That's a nice render BTW.

Great tips Sean...I have yet to use mags myself...prefering the dials. It takes a little bit of time(not much) and if I just cant get a certain part correct...there is always postwork to hide poke thru...adj, sleeves etc.

Your Ichiro renders have been really fun to view, you have a very professional, "clean," and colorful style of portraiture that's attractive and lets the character's personality dominate the image. Thanks for the tip about re-fitting. I was recently surprised to find that some clothing props intended for M3 and The Freak (!) could be made to fit M2 with nothing more than dial-tweaking. Of course, you parent the props ... stay clear of the temptation to conform. I'll keep trying this. My biggest frustration at the moment is the dearth of items for David. I just picked up the way-cool "Elvis Hair" for M2/M3 at Polymage ... my next mini-project will be to see how well I can make it fit David. That shouldn't be too hard.

Thanks, Xoco. I sometimes think that, with all the new characters we have these days, no one gets a chance to really dive into the older ones and see what they're capable of when pushed and prodded hard enough. Glad the Ichi series is coming across as well as I hoped it would; it truly has been a blast to work on. Roy: I do this a lot on clothing that's actually made for the character Yeah, I think we all do. :) I do that as a matter of course, actually, since there doesn't seem much point in adding things into the render mix that don't even appear in the image. And I sorta figured that was one of those "well, everybody knows that!" kinds of things that does indeed bear repeating every now and then.

Yep Sean! You are so right. It is amazing what you could do with a little dial twisting. I love getting something to fit a character it wasn't made for! lol

A sort-of related tidbit that might be of interest to those who export Poser figures to Vue d'Esprit: If you make the body parts that are hidden by clothing invisible, they don't export to Vue at all, which is very helpful in terms of poly count and subsequently render time. If you're not going to be able to see them, why export them?

heck, I have good clothes that don't even fit now!..;)

Yep, it's amazing what you can achieve with a little patience - Sean's creations are an excellent example! I remember when clothes weren't even conformable, just poseable. You can still do that for still images. Just save your characters pose, bring in the clothing item and use that same pose, don't conform it but just select the body and using the trans dials position it and scale parts if you need to. This is definitely not the way to go if you're rendering from multiple angles but for a frontal shot it should work with minimal effort. Oh, and Sean, go get Traveler's tutorials on magnets, they're at the RDNA free stuff - you'll wonder why you hadn't used magnets before, he makes it really easy.

Correction: The tutorials are, of course, in the Tutorial section not the Free Stuff :)

OMG this picutre is great! and nice tip thanks so much! --_Essie

There is another way to use any clothing item with any character in Poser 5. I will try to explain it... Load whatever clothing you want on a character that is zeroed.. Export the clothing as a 3ds. Load the character you want it to fit... Load the file you just made... Scale the character (not the clothes)to fit the cloth... Then parent it with inhert bends checked. Return the character to 100% Save the clothes as a smart prop.... Then you can use the cloth room to make it fit perfectly.. I found this info somewhere and wish I could remember who to thank for it...